


Harry Potter & the Rest of the Story

by earnestdesire



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Harry Potter, Consensual Infidelity, Demisexual Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy & Pansy Parkinson Friendship, Draco Malfoy is a Good Parent, Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, F/M, Gay Draco Malfoy, Grief/Mourning, Harry Potter Next Generation, Harry Potter is a Good Parent, M/M, Past Astoria Greengrass/Draco Malfoy, Past Child Abuse, Past Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Past Rape/Non-con, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Potions Master Draco Malfoy, Pregnancy, Professor Neville Longbottom, Scorpius Malfoy & Albus Severus Potter Friendship, Slow Burn, Widower Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:15:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 14
Words: 42,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22689106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earnestdesire/pseuds/earnestdesire
Summary: Harry Potter lost his wife less than a year ago.He's still the youngest Head Auror in history. He's still father to three wonderful, unpredictable, indomitable children. He's still an uncle, a godfather, a best friend, a surrogate son. He's still the Boy Who Lived Twice.Harry Potter is still alive. Somehow.And so is Draco Malfoy.---EXCLUSIVE! BREAKING NEWS!The Wizarding World is abuzz with news that HERMIONE GRANGER-WEASLEY (closest confidant of the Boy Who Lived, Wizengamot prosecutor, and pregnant with her third child) has signed a contract with IPSWITCH PUBLISHERS. The beautiful and brainy Ms. G-W is writing the PENULTIMATE HISTORICAL ACCOUNT of the Battle of Hogwarts, including interviews with all the most prominent DARK ARTS DESTROYERS. Surely the private Mr. Potter will grant her an exclusive interview? We wish her a pint of Felix Felicis, although the BRIGHTEST WITCH OF OUR AGE is unlikely to need it. Preorder your copy from Flourish & Blott's today!
Relationships: Alicia Spinnet/Original Female Character(s), Angelina Johnson/George Weasley, Arthur Weasley/Molly Weasley, Astoria Greengrass/Original Male Character(s), Audrey Weasley/Percy Weasley, Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Fleur Delacour/Bill Weasley, Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Luna Lovegood/Rolf Scamander, Millicent Bulstrode/Flora Carrow, Neville Longbottom/Original Female Character(s), Pansy Parkinson/Blaise Zabini, Teddy Lupin/Victoire Weasley
Comments: 104
Kudos: 187





	1. August 14, 2019

**Author's Note:**

> I've plotted this novel in its entirety, but can't guarantee I'll post on a schedule. The goal is one chapter per week.
> 
> Please, as always, mind the tags. There is a lot of grief and PTSD in this fic, and past trauma relayed through both flashback and exposition.
> 
> No infidelity occurs in this story, although it might seem that way at the beginning. If that's a hot button issue for you, I can guarantee it will be resolved.
> 
> For reference, we're picking up 21 years after the Battle of Hogwarts, and two years after the Epilogue in "Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows." This is a story that respects the Epilogue, but disregards "Harry Potter & the Cursed Child." I want to respect canon, but there's not much room to create within this universe anymore unless you cut yourself off somewhere. I also play fast-and-loose with Pottermore trivia, because who can keep up?
> 
> The story will not be Beta'd, sadly, and I am not British. Respectful corrections and Brit-picking are welcome.
> 
> I OWN NOTHING. I MAKE NO MONEY FROM THIS WORK. J.K. ROWLING IS THE OWNER OF ALL THINGS HARRY POTTER.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading.
> 
> Check out the Tumblr (@earnestdesire) for inspiration photos and other fun stuff, or to chat outside ao3.

**Wednesday, August 14, 2019**

“Hermione! Hermione Granger-Weasley, you are not going to _believe_ what I just found out!”

“Angie?” Hermione called from upstairs. “I’m in the loo! Hold on!”

“Can’t wait!” Angelina Weasley yelled back, dropping her bag at the front door and taking the stairs two at a time. “You’re sitting down anyway, yeah?” Harry followed his sister-in-law up the stairs at a more sedate pace. She still hadn’t acknowledged his presence in what was—no, really, it _was_ —his own house.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Hermione grumbled loudly from behind the door. “I’m on the toilet. Can’t it wait?”

“You’re always on the toilet these days,” Angie scoffed. “And if I don’t tell someone about this right bloody now, I am going to explode!”

“You could tell me,” Harry finally offered.

Angelina waved an impatient hand. “No. You won’t care enough.”

“Hello to you, too, Angie,” Harry mumbled in return, sipping at his lukewarm Yorkshire Gold. He grimaced; it just didn’t taste good at room temp.

“Fine,” Hermione sighed. “What is it?”

Angie’s face lit up with slightly manically glee. “Astoria Malfoy is pregnant.”

There was a confused beat of silence on both sides of the loo door. Then Hermione said, “Well, that’s... lovely. Scorpius must be excited.”

Angie’s smile spread impossibly wider. “The baby,” she enunciated carefully, “is _not_ Draco’s.”

“What?!” Hermione screeched.

“What?” Harry repeated, stupidly.

“I know!” Angie cried, her hands clasped. “Can you believe it? I heard it from Pansy Zabini just today. Apparently, she’s leaving Malfoy to _marry the illegitimate baby’s father_.”

“No!” Harry and Hermione both gasped.

“Yes. Yes. A thousand times _yes_.” Angie was in raptures of unholy glee.

The toilet flushed. “You need to explain,” Hermione called as the sink turned on. “From the beginning. You heard it from Pansy?”

“She would know,” Harry nodded, wide-eyed.

“She definitely knows,” Angie agreed. She practically vibrated. “Heard it all directly from Astoria. It’s not really a secret; they won’t be able to keep it out of the papers.”

“Bloody hell,” Harry said, swiping a hand across his gaping mouth. “Damn. Poor Scorpius.”

Angelina’s smile dimmed a little. “Merlin, yeah. Poor kid. Can you imagine doing that to your child?”

The bathroom door opened, and Hermione waddled out. Her pregnant belly preceded her into the hall. “Well, if there’s another baby on the way...”

“Pansy said she’s nearly three months.”

“Bloody hell,” Harry said again with a wince.

“Malfoy’s known for over a month, but the divorce proceedings are underway and Pansy figures it’ll hit the press within the week.”

“Oh no,” Hermione murmured. “Just in time for Scorpius to return to school.”

“It’s a bloody awful mess,” Angie said. Hermione led the way back down stairs toward the kitchen. “Pansy insists it’s all amicable, but that has to be a lie. She said Astoria’s been carrying on the affair for _four years_.”

“My god,” Hermione said. “And Draco had no idea?”

“Who the hell knows?” Angie shrugged. “Those Malfoys have always had weird marriages. Lucius and Narcissa were the picture of Death Eater propriety, but his grandfather had a mistress he kept better than his wife.”

“But they always seemed... solid,” Harry remarked as he fell into a chair at the kitchen table. “Happy, even.”

Hermione tapped the kettle with her wand and pulled out the tea. “It’s impossible to imagine Draco as a cuckold. He’s so incredibly sharp.”

“You’ve been working with him, yeah?” Angie asked. “Have you seen him in the last month?”

“Not in person.” Hermione shook her head. “Owls. A few Floo calls, but none recently. I haven’t noticed a thing. Have you seen him at work, Harry?”

“Not at all. He always goes through Ella Flint when we need a consult.”

“Ron has,” Angie frowned. “George says he sees him all the time.”

“Yeah. Well.”

“Harry avoids Draco,” Hermione snorted. “Hasn’t taken a meeting with him in ages, even though they ask for his help on all kinds of cases.”

“Oi!” Harry objected. “It’s not like I’m _avoiding_ him. I just don’t need to meet with him directly. He has a rapport with Flint. They’re both Slytherins.”

“Astoria isn’t,” Hermione said thoughtfully. “She Sorted Hufflepuff. First in the family, I believe.”

“Malfoy married a Hufflepuff?” Harry said, genuinely perplexed.

“A Pureblood Hufflepuff,” Angie said, “from a long line of Slytherins. And she raised another one without any problem, didn’t she?”

“So did I,” Harry smiled and shrugged.

“Ha. True.”

“I just can’t believe Astoria would do that to Draco,” Hermione puzzled. “For four years? I know she respects him. I would’ve bet Galleons she loved him, too.” She rubbed her belly with one hand while she poured boiling water into the waiting teapot.

“Well, according to Pansy, she does,” Angie said, tossing her Charmed-blonde bangs to one side. “She said the affair wasn’t really an affair at all. That Malfoy knew about the other man all along, and they’re only splitting because of the baby.”

“That makes no sense,” Hermione said. “If he knew about the affair, why wouldn’t they divorce before now?”

“Scorpius?” Angie said. “People stay together for the kids all the time.”

“I suppose.”

“I’ve never heard one word about Malfoy having affairs,” Harry offered. “Have you?”

Angie shifted a little in her seat, as if she were suddenly uneasy. “Rumors. Nothing but whispers, and everyone’s always talked _around_ it. If you know what I mean.”

“I really don’t,” Harry frowned.

“Well...” Angie accepted a cup of tea from Hermione, and the look they exchanged was loaded with meaning. “Like I said, nothing but rumors.”

Harry looked back and forth between them, still frowning. “What rumors?”

Hermione sighed, sinking back in her chair. “When Draco and Astoria got engaged, there was a—well, a—”

“Rumor?” Harry deadpanned.

“Right. Yes. A rumor that Draco... played for the other team, as it were.”

Harry blinked at her. “Draco Malfoy is gay?”

“It’s been said,” Angie nodded. “Apparently, he never dated at Hogwarts. Not for lack of interest.”

“He was a bit _busy_ , as I recall,” Hermione remarked.

“True, which is why these are only rumors. Just because a bloke turns down offers doesn’t make him bent.” Angie sipped her tea and shot Harry a sharp, knowing look. “For that matter, accepting offers wouldn’t make him straight, either.”

Harry’s ears and cheeks heated. “Shut up.”

“But Draco never dated _at all_. He simply announced his engagement to Astoria, and that was that.” Hermione leaned back in her chair, wincing a little. “The Sacred Twenty-Eight are strange about courtship, anyway, but Draco was famously unavailable. It was considered quite a coup when Astoria landed him, no matter the Mark on his arm.”

“He’s rebuilt the Malfoy fortune single-handedly,” Angie agreed, smiling a bit wickedly. “An odd looking bloke, isn't he? But he's good on a broom.”

Hermione laughed. Harry scowled.

“I thought he dated Parkinson in school,” Harry said.

Angie tugged on the cuff of her robe. “No, they were never together. Pansy carried a torch for him for years, I reckon, but they were never more than friends.”

“Good thing, I guess,” Harry said. At the women’s raised eyebrows, he snorted. “Well, she married Zabini. That’d be awkward, don’t you think?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Her husband might like the idea. Blaise has a very Parisian attitude toward sex.”

Harry shook his head. “I’ve no idea what that means.”

“Oh, _Harry_ ,” Hermione laughed.

“We’ll tell you when you’re older,” Angie smirked. Then her wand began buzzing, and she cast a quick _Tempus_. “Ah, damn, I’ve got to go. Meeting with the Irish Quidditch Commission, and then George needs an extra hand with shipment tonight.”

“Do you want me to come by?” Harry offered.

She waved him off. “No, no, we have it well sorted. Teddy already promised to work overtime.”

“I won’t wait up for him, then,” Harry said. Angie hopped to her feet, planting a kiss on Hermione’s cheek and a pat on her round belly.

“Ta for the tea, dears,” she called as she hurried back to the front hall. “Tell Ron I want an update on the business with the cursed broomsticks. Sooner, rather than later.”

“No problem,” Harry yelled back. The door opened and closed, and there was the distinct _pop_ of disapparition.

“Poor Scorpius,” Hermione said again, with a firm rub of her stomach. “Do you suppose Albus knows?”

“If he does, he isn’t saying anything to me.” Harry lifted his glasses and rubbed at his eyes. “Not that it’s unusual, mind. He’s locked up tighter than a Gringott’s vault these days.” Hermione made a small humming noise, and Harry sighed. “Go ahead and say it.”

“Well, it’s just that you tend to express your opinion of Draco rather... forcefully.”

“Malfoy and I are fine,” Harry said, sending her a flat look.

“Perhaps,” she hedged, “but you and Ron both tend to cut him up whenever we mention the subject of our school days. Lee and George join in, though heaven knows why—they barely knew him then. It must be difficult for Al, to think you all hate his best friend’s father.”

Harry let out a long breath and hooked his hands behind his head. “You’re right, of course.”

Hermione quirked a small smile. “Of course.”

“It’s habit, at this point,” Harry admitted, and winced. “God, that sounds terrible.”

“Draco was a big part of your life during school. You devoted so much attention to him.” Catching his withering glare, she only smiled again. “Really, Harry. You always were a bit obsessed.”

“I _hate_ it when you say that.”

“And yet...” She shrugged. “Draco is a very different man than he was as a child. And, in point of fact, I’m not sure he was exactly who we thought he was. Even then.”

“Why does it matter?” Harry said, a bit petulantly.

“Because Scorpius is important to Albus, and Draco is Scorpius’s father, so you’re going to have to see each other, now and again,” Hermione replied primly, raising her brows. “Besides which, you’re 39 years old and this all feels a bit juvenile, don’t you think?”

“Tell that to your husband.”

“I have. But I’ll make sure he hears me, this time.” Hermione sipped her tea, then wrinkled her nose. She tapped it, and a wordless charm returned the cup to steaming. Harry never remembered to do that. “Anyway, I did have a reason for invading your house first thing on a workday morning.”

“A reason? Do you lot need one? I’m fairly sure Angelina wouldn’t have minded if I’d been away from home, actually. I think the password on my front door is _Weasley_.”

“ _Potter-Weasley_ ,” she retorted. “And yes. A reason.”

“All right then,” Harry said agreeably. “You want some toast while you tell me about it?”

“Cinnamon-raisin?”

“Sure.” Harry pulled the loaf from a cupboard and popped two thick slices into the shiny Muggle toaster. “Go on then. I’m on the edge of my seat.”

“Well, all the memorials last year got me thinking...”

“Yeah?”

“It’s just… twenty years since the war? It doesn’t seem possible, but it really has been twenty years. Twenty-one now. Rose had all these questions about the Order, and Dumbledore’s Army, and the Battle of Hogwarts. At school, her Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher is the only professor who will use Voldemort’s proper name.”

“Hestia Jones is a treasure.”

“She really is. But she isn’t a history professor, and she’s planning to retire soon—apparently, she’s just welcomed her first grandchild, and she wants more time at home.” Hermione drummed her fingers against her belly with a sigh. “The special edition of the Daily Prophet, with all the essays and articles about the war, seemed so _incomplete_ , don’t you think? Almost fantastical. They made you sound like some sort of mythical knight, with a helm and a magic sword.”

“The sword was Neville,” Harry joked, and Hermione laughed.

“That’s exactly my point! History is being rewritten, twisted into some kind of fairy story. That shouldn’t happen. People should know precisely what Voldemort did, and to whom, and why.” She was animated now, vibrant in her fervor. “They should know what we sacrificed to stop him, so they can prepare themselves. So no one like him ever comes to power again.”

Harry put the toast, well-buttered, down in front of his sister-in-law. Her skin was pink along the edges, and she tapped a toe restlessly. “I agree,” Harry said, sitting back down. “So, what’s your plan?”

She shot him a narrow look. “My plan?”

“Hermione, you always have a plan.”

“Ron’s the strategist,” she argued, but she looked pleased as she crunched her toast.

“Where do you think he learned it?”

“Well—” She took another small bite, swallowed, and met Harry’s eye squarely. “I’m going to write a book.”

Harry blinked back at her. “A book?”

“Yes. A complete history of the Battle of Hogwarts, with necessary background information and as many first-hand accounts as I can accumulate.”

“That’s—that’s _brilliant_ , Mione. Truly.”

She quirked a nervous smile. “You think so?”

“Of course! You’re the best person for the job. I can’t believe no one thought of it before.”

“I did,” she admitted, after another bite. “But it was too—too raw, you know? It felt too soon. And I’ve been so busy at work, and with the children, I couldn’t fathom taking time away for a project like this.”

“Rose and Hugo will be so excited,” Harry said. “Their mother’s name on a _book?_ In the _library?_ You’ll be the coolest mum ever.”

“Stop it,” she scolded, flushing.

“Have you told Ron?”

She nodded. “Of course. He thinks I should have done it ages ago, but I don’t think he realizes how long the project will take.”

“Months? Years?”

“At least a year, I should think. I’ve never written a book before.”

“Are you sure?” Harry teased. “Some of your essays for Professor Binns were long enough.”

“Shut it, you.”

Harry reached out to clasp her hand. She wasn’t wearing her wedding ring today—her hands had been too swollen for weeks. “It’s a good idea, Hermione.”

“I’m glad you think so,” she said, squeezing his fingers. “Because you’ll be one of my first interviews.”

“Merlin,” Harry grunted, releasing her hand.

“I’ll schedule some time in with your secretary. What’s the new one’s name, again?”

“Auror Morris.”

“Morris, then. How long has she lasted?”

Harry gave a self-deprecating shrug. “Two months. She seems competent.”

“Has she hit on you yet?”

“Not too much,” Harry blushed, gulping tea.

“I can’t understand why you don’t get a male secretary, Harry.”

“I did. Franklin.” Harry ruffled his hair and sighed. “Asked me to dinner on day three.”

Hermione giggled. “Merlin save us from the Potter charm.”

“It wasn’t like this when Ginny was—” Harry stopped, swallowing something thick. His tongue, maybe. Hermione’s eyes were soft.

“Ginny was a force of nature,” she said. “Nobody would risk her temper.”

“Including me,” he smiled. It didn’t feel wholly honest, smiling like that, but he gave it his best. “Now the nutters are coming out of the woodwork.”

“The Wizarding World’s most eligible bachelor,” Hermione said. She finished her toast in two crisp bites.

“Widower, not bachelor,” he reminded her.

“Yes. Of course. I am sorry, Harry. It must be awful.”

“It’s fine,” he lied, still smiling. “No one’s sent me a love potion in ages.”

“Just like being back at school, eh?”

“It is that,” he agreed, finally grinning with teeth.

“You know, there’s a very effective antidote potion on the market now. You can take it preemptively, which is quite clever. We’ve been stocking them in the women’s shelters. Tastes like almond cake.”

“Really?” Harry perked up. “Can you get me some?”

She finished her tea and climbed carefully to her feet. “Sure. We order in bulk from the supplier.”

“Mulpepper’s?”

“Yes. But you’ll never guess who developed the formula.”

Harry frowned. “Who?”

Hermione grinned at him, a bit impishly. “Draco Malfoy, of course.”


	2. August 26, 2019

**Monday, August 26th, 2019**

As it turned out, Morris the Competent Receptionist became Morris the Cautionary Tale within a fortnight. Harry’s arrival every Monday morning signaled a deluge of Owl notes and interdepartmental memos, all jockeying for position in the assigned corner of his office foyer. Behind each door leading out of the hexagonal room, Harry and the four members of his administrative staff enjoyed a small amount of privacy and a whole lot of paperwork.

There was Ron, of course, who was Harry’s specialist in both _Game and Sports_ and _Magical Transportation_ law, and Alicia Spinnet, who managed _Restricted Ingredients, Potions, and Artifacts_ and _Magical Creatures_. Their doors were on the left. On the right: Dedalus Diggle—Harry’s first partner in the Auror service, and the oldest active-duty Auror in the Ministry—took charge of _Magical Accidents and Catastrophes_ (his memory Charms were legendary), and Ella Flint was indispensible in all areas of _Muggle Relations_ and _International Magical Cooperation_. Two Gryffindors, a Ravenclaw, and a Slytherin.

The receptionist needed to be Auror-trained to manage the lot. Something-or-other Morris (Harry _really_ needed to be better with names) had come straight out of Auror training highly recommended. She made sure all the mail and memos were thoroughly screened before sorting them and sending it all through to the correct member of staff. She answered and directed the main Floo-call hearth, and transcribed endless notes in Ron’s particularly illegible scrawl. And she really didn’t flirt with Harry. Much.

Morris was the sixth receptionist Harry’d hired since his wife’s death and his previous assistant’s abrupt departure, and he was happy with her work. This made Alicia Spinnet’s aggressive arrival at Harry’s door all the more exhausting.

Spinnet had been at school with Harry—a Gryffindor Chaser, and classmate of Fred and George—and she’d joined the Auror service straight out of Hogwarts. She was a life-long friend of Angelina. She was a member of Dumbledore’s Army. Harry knew Spinnet about as well as he knew anyone he wasn’t currently related to, but the look on her face now (“embarrassed rage,” Harry couldn’t help but call it) was entirely new.

“Potter, sir,” she began, closing the door behind her and activating the Silencing charm. “You have to replace the receptionist.”

“What?” Harry said, a bit dumbly.

“The receptionist. Simone Morris.” Spinnet began to pace in front of Harry’s desk, ignoring the grouping of armchairs entirely. “She’s got to go, sir. I’m sorry.”

“Can you tell me why?” Harry asked carefully. Demanding answers from raging women had never worked well for him in the past.

“She’s—” the brown-skinned woman winced, and the tips of her ears went a bit ruddy. “It’s just—she’s unprofessional.”

Harry frowned. “That is not my experience with Auror Morris.”

“I know!” Spinnet cried, throwing up both hands. “I know she’s a damn sight better than the last few. Where do we get these nightmares? Honestly, you’d think we never gave the cadets any sensitivity training! Don’t they know better than to shit where they eat? Were they raised by _trolls?”_

“Spinnet,” Harry cut in, biting back his smile. “What has Morris done, exactly?”

She calmed herself by force of will, drawing in a long, deep breath. “Sir, she—she has a locking spell on one of her desk drawers. Did you know?”

“I didn’t, but it isn’t against the rules,” Harry said. “Her desk is in a public space. Makes sense she’d want to lock up a few things during the day.”

“Yes, but—” Spinnet seemed conflicted, and her nose flushed, to match her ears, as she met Harry’s eye. “I happened to come out of the office before she got the drawer closed this morning. I didn’t get a long look, sir, but the drawer... it’s full of letters. _Your_ letters. There must be nearly a hundred of them in there.”

“My letters?” Harry repeated, a bit blankly. “Why would she have my mail in her desk drawer?”

“Well, they were all sort of... sparkly. Pink. Some of them had those silly animated stamps George put out last year, just all over them.”

Harry blanched, and he only just managed to stop himself from dropping his forehead to his desk. “Love letters,” Harry croaked. “She’s saving the love letters.”

“Looks like, sir,” Spinnet agreed regretfully.

Harry sighed and closed his eyes. “She’s been so _normal_.”

“Apparently not.” When he opened his eyes, Spinnet shrugged. “I think we’ve got to think outside the box for her replacement, sir. Maybe offer Jameson more money. Think he’d come back if we increased the benefits package?”

Harry shook his head. “Jameson’s an excellent Auror. He wanted fieldwork, and he deserves it. We were lucky to hold onto him for as long as we did.”

“Well, maybe another male cadet, sir?” Spinnet said as she finally relaxed. “One that isn’t—you know—”

“Gay?”

“I was going to say ‘dazzled by you,’” Spinnet shot back, grinning.

“Jesus,” Harry groaned. “They aren’t _dazzled_. They’re mental.”

“They’re Aurors. They’ve wanted to be Aurors since they were kids, mostly. These fresh young things all grew up on stories of the Great Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived Twice, the youngest Head Auror in Wizarding history. You’re a hero to every one of them. It’s natural to be a bit star-struck, sir.”

“A bit star-struck?” Harry said. “She has been collecting my fan mail, Spinnet.”

“True,” she grimaced. “But at least it isn’t your hair.”

Harry choked a little, and scowled at her when she started to laugh. The strange, quiet ginger cadet with freckles had been renamed The Collector. Harry had never been more embarrassed than when he ordered the raid on her little flat in Diagon. The search team was endlessly amused by The Collector’s assortment of shed hair and used tea cups. He might never live that one down.

“Right,” Harry sniffed, pointing an ineffectual finger at Spinnet. She just tucked her smile behind a hand. “I’ll send Morris back to the paddling pool at the end of the day. But you’re helping me screen the next one.”

That stopped Spinnet’s giggling. “No. Come on, Potter—”

“Nope. Ron leaves for Kopparberg in two days, to oversee the International Broom-Race Finals. Diggle’s too damn friendly, and Flint scares them all away. I’m not doing this alone.”

The stocky woman pressed a bit at her scalp, between neat cornrows, in a gesture Harry privately thought of as Spinnet’s Stall. “It’s just... with the vote on increasing House-elf wage requirements, and the doxy infestation over in Limerick...”

“I’m sure you’ll manage,” Harry said. “I have every confidence in you.”

“Yeah. Thanks.” Spinnet shot him two quick fingers, rolled her eyes, and popped the top button on her Auror robes with a sigh. “See if I root out the next crazy for you, sir.”

“You won’t need to.” Harry leaned back in his chair. “I’ll have your expert eye during hiring.”

“Cheers.”

“You want me to order some of those little sandwiches for the tea trolley? The ones with the sesame seeds?”

Spinnet chewed on the inside of her cheek to hide a smile. “I know what you’re doing, Potter. I cannot be bribed.”

Harry grinned. “Thank god for lesbians and Slytherins. If you or Flint were susceptible to this Savior nonsense, I’d really be on the broom without a wand.”

“Well, there’s always Diggle to prop up your ego.”

“Diggle is that way with everyone. Even the Dark Wizards we’re arresting. Trust me, I’ve seen it.”

“Doesn’t quite seem possible, to be that sympathetic _and_ British,” Spinnet mused.

“He’s Welsh.”

“Oh. All right then.”

A knock at the door cut through their banter. “Come in,” Harry called.

Ron’s copper head poked around the doorframe, followed more slowly by the rest of his long, lean body. It hadn’t seemed possible when they were children, but Ron Granger-Weasley was at least twice as freckled now as he’d been then—too many hours in the sunshine, investigating game-and-sports violations, evaluating new Portkey destinations, and playing pick-up Quidditch with the expanding Weasley brood. He was so heavily freckled that it made him look tan, from a distance.

His eyes were the same bright, open blue they’d always been. His wide mouth still smiled when he was thinking, or sleeping. Not everything had changed.

“You got a minute, Harry? Sorry, Spinnet, but it’s—”

“Private, classified, whatever.” The woman waved a hand, then pinned Harry with a look. “Yes to the sandwiches. No to the bribery. _Ugh_ to the new receptionist. I’ll get Morris packing up, and on her way before the eleven o’clock meeting is finished. But you owe me.”

“Sandwiches?” Harry reminded her hopefully.

“Not even close, Potter.”

Alicia Spinnet stepped around Ron, closing the office door behind her. Ron’s eyebrows were hovering near his hairline. “You’ve sacked Morris, then?”

Harry frowned. “She’s been saving my fan mail in her desk.”

“Your fan mail?”

“The love letters.”

Ron cracked a laugh, slouching into the visitor’s chair with a grin. “‘Course she has. Why not? They’re all so interesting, so original—”

“Shut it.”

“ _Dear Mr. Potter,_ ” Ron sniveled, batting red-gold eyelashes. “ _You’re so clever, and so brave, and so handsome_ —”

“I hate you.”

“ _I like your graying hair, actually, even though my friends all think it makes you look old_ —”

“Bloody hell—”

“ _I prefer to think you’re distinguished. Do you still like treacle tart?_”

“I need new friends,” Harry muttered.

“Ah, yes. Sadly, Spinnet’s got the troll situation well in hand. How on earth will you meet new people without the threat of imminent demise?”

“You know,” Harry mused, mockingly. “You could’ve hooked Hermione a lot faster if you’d started reading all those Muggle novels while we were still in school. Your vocabulary has really improved.”

“Fuck you very much. I was a prefect!”

“Gryffindor was hurting for options our year, mate. It was you, or artistically-inclined Dean, or pubescent Neville, or Seamus blowing shit up left and right. Or the Boy Who Barely Passed Potions.”

Ron snorted. “I have more O.W.L.s than you, and better hair.”

“I survived the Killing Curse. Twice.”

“Not really a marketable skill.”

“I got the girl,” Harry smiled, a bit sadly.

Ron returned it, grin faded to something softer. “Technically speaking, we both did.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“Well,” Ron cleared his throat. “I’m here about Hermione, actually. About the book?”

“Yeah. It sounds like it’s going to be brilliant.”

“‘Course it is, it’s Mione,” Ron rolled his eyes. “Why she can’t just take her maternity leave to sit around rocking an infant, eating crisps, I’ll never know. But she’s hit the ground running with the whole idea—”

“This is my shocked face.”

“—and she’s already set up interviews with some ‘non-combatant survivors.’”

Harry frowned. “What the hell does that mean?”

“ _Slytherins_ ,” Ron replied seriously. “From our own year.”

“You don’t mean—” Harry goggled, with a twist in his gut. “Not Malfoy?”

“Godric, no!” Ron scratched behind his ear with one hand. “The ferret has enough on his plate without dredging up war memories. Assuming he’d even be willing? That’d be ace, if she manages it, which means, of course, that she probably will, but it’s actually—” Ron flushed, and went a bit twitchy. “Well, Bulstrode, for one. Her wife, Flora, and Flora’s twin sister. Hestia Pérez? From accounting?” At Harry’s nod, he swallowed hard. “And there’s also…”

“Ron?”

“Pansy Parkinson Zabini,” Ron finally admitted, with a wince.

Harry took a moment, because that only seemed fair. “‘ _Non-combatant_.’ That’s one way to put it.”

“I know. I know how you feel about Parkinson, Harry. But she’s been friends with Angie for ages now, and Mione just thought she’d be—an important perspective, yeah? Historically.”

“Right.” Harry tried not to grit his teeth, but he could tell by Ron’s expression that he wasn’t quite managing it. “Makes sense. Important, to get the _perspective_ of the people who’d prefer I simply died a bit earlier.”

Ron’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve already forgiven her. That’s what you said.”

“Was I expected to forget, too?”

Ron scrubbed a large hand over his long face. “'Course not, mate.”

“Please tell me Hermione’s interviewing some from our side, too.”

“Mate,” Ron said again, with a flat look. “Don’t be a prick. You know she’s got the whole thing plotted out on rolls and rolls of parchment. Who to interview, and when—what order makes sense, you know?”

“What d’you mean?”

“Well, it’s not like we don’t know our own story, and most of the older members from the Order—Mum and Dad, McGonagall, and so on. I’ve heard so much about the DA’s year at Hogwarts without us that I think I could write that damn book myself.”

_“‘The Great and Terrible Bravery of a Few Good Gryffindors,’”_ Harry suggested, and Ron laughed.

“I sincerely think my own kids believe Neville, Ginny, and Seamus are the real war heroes, and their mum and I spent a year camping in the woods.”

“Albus told me once that ‘Mummy was so, so brave, and Daddy was good at hiding.’”

Ron lost it, choked with giggles. Tears were rolling down his cheeks as his face turned nearly as red as his eyebrows. “Merlin, Ginny…”

Harry wiped his own wet eyes. “She was a right bastard, sometimes.”

“More than sometimes, mate.”

“I see what you’re saying, though,” Harry sighed, letting the laughter fade. “Hermione already has that perspective. Our perspective.”

“And she’s hoping that interviewing the Snakes first will give her some new ideas for approaching the parts we already know,” Ron said.

Harry eyed his best friend with amusement. “Came up with that on her own, did she?”

“Ah, well,” Ron smiled, “we might’ve talked about it. A bit.”

“A bit.”

“Mione is really good at the details. When she wants to understand something, she dives deep. It’s a good thing, and she’s so brilliant, but sometimes…”

Harry nodded. “Sometimes she can’t pull back enough to see the whole picture.”

“You said it, not me,” Ron shrugged.

“Okay,” Harry said. “Okay. I promise not to give her a hard time about Parkinson.” Ron put on his innocent eyebrows, which made Harry roll his eyes. “That’s why you’re talking to me, isn’t it? Instead of your wife?”

“No wonder you’re Head Auror,” Ron said. “Nothing gets past you.”

“Would that were true…” Harry grumbled, dropping his face into his hands. He looked up again, leaning his chin on a palm, elbow resting perilously close to a cold cup of tea. He pulled out his scuffed pocket watch, and cringed. “It’s half after ten.”

“Best run over and grab my files for the meeting,” Ron said, slapping his knees before standing. “I think Diggle has the breakroom kettle working again. You want a cuppa?”

“Cheers,” Harry nodded. “I’ll see you up there.”

Ron paused to give Harry a long look. It wrinkled his brow and pursed his lips, and Harry’d become very familiar with that expression over the past eleven months.

“I’m all right, Ron,” he told him.

“Sure, mate, sure.”

When the door to Harry’s office closed behind Ron, it took him a few minutes too long to pull his head from his hands.


	3. August 30th, 2019

**Friday, August 30 th, 2019**

The first of September fell on a Sunday this year. Families, which might normally drive or Floo into King’s Cross Station on the first, would make a weekend of it. A little sightseeing in Muggle London, a little shopping in Diagon Alley, a chance to visit Gringotts or the Ministry or the secret Wizarding section of the London Zoo.

Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes was going to be a madhouse.

Harry left the Ministry early with Ron at his side. His brother-in-law was leaving for Sweden the next day, but he insisted on a few hours wrapping purchases. The International Portkey left brutally early, and he hadn’t stopped complaining about it all day.

“It’s just _pointless_ ,” Ron was still whinging. “We can’t even access the starting field until afternoon.”

“I know,” Harry said. “Tough break.”

“I should’ve handed it off to Diamant this year. They don’t actually need me.”

Fiona Diamant was Ron’s second-in-command of the Game and Sports division, and a very capable witch. Every year, Ron told Harry that he ought to give Diamant the Broom-Race Finals, and every year he oversaw the damn thing himself.

“If you don’t want to go, why do you keep doing it?”

“Fuck if I know!”

Harry snorted. “I can’t believe Hermione let you leave right before Hogwarts this year. You get to avoid the tearful send-off.”

Ron shoved Harry’s shoulder. “Shut it. It’s horrible. Rosie seems all right with everything, but I know it won’t be easy.” Harry cleared his throat, shrugging. Ron grabbed him by the bicep, pulling him to a stop just outside the Leaky Cauldron. “Harry. Are you going to be okay? Because I really can send Diamant. It’s the first year you’re doing this…”

“Alone,” Harry finished quietly.

“Right.”

“But I won’t be,” Harry shook his head. “Hermione will be with me, and George and Angie. Audrey and Percy, I’m sure, and Fleur—”

“Yeah, I get it, I’m just another bloody Weasley!” Ron led the way into the Leaky, shaking his head. “Who needs Ron? Might as well send him to Sweden again—”

“Diamant _wants_ to go, mate.”

“Because broom-racing is brilliant,” Ron grinned puckishly. “Who wouldn’t?”

They jostled and joked their way through Diagon Alley’s back-to-school crowd. Harry always liked watching the little witches and wizards with stars in their eyes, picking out soft new quills and shiny cauldrons. He liked to be a part of that wonder. Not enough to forgo a Glamour, of course; he’d gone for strawberry blond and bushy-browed this time, in hopes of blending in with an army of Weasleys.

There was a line forming outside the entrance to Wheezes. Harry and Ron made their way around back, to the perfectly-hidden staff entrance. Ron tapped the wall with his wand and muttered, “Nobody never needed nothing nonsensical.” The door appeared, handle popping forward like the head of a turtle, and they slipped inside.

It was, in a word, riotous.

The storeroom teemed with bodies. Many of the heads were ginger, of course, with Molly and Arthur at opposite corners, directing traffic with their wands and booming voices. “That’s not the right chewing gum, Freddy, dear, you need the one that foams at the mouth!”

Fleur’s silvery blonde head swooped back and forth near the ceiling as she retrieved boxes from the uppermost shelves, gliding along on a rolling ladder. Her three equally-blonde children caught each box as it gently drifted toward the ground. Eleven-year-old Louis elbowed his older sister, Dominique, hard in the stomach before gleefully catching a parcel. “Twenty-seven for me! _Immanquable!_ ”

Dom poked Louis in the side of the head, and he yelped.

Harry and Ron made their way through the crowd to Arthur, who was trying to make out an order form written in what looked like ancient runes. “How’s it going, Dad?” Ron shouted.

“Oh!” Arthur’s face lit up behind gold spectacles. “Ron! Wonderful! And…”

“Harry.”

“Of course, yes, Harry, hello…”

“Where does George wants us?” Harry asked, pulling off his outer robe and shrinking it to pocket-sized.

“He’s at the register with Teddy,” Arthur said. “You’ll have to ask him.”

“Are the kids around here?” Harry asked, straining onto his toes as he craned his neck.

“Molly brought along Al and Lily, of course. Rose and Hugo already left with Hermione. I haven’t seen James. I imagine he’s out front with Teddy.”

“Cheers, Arthur,” Harry said, and weaved through the crowd in Ron’s wake.

They pushed through the swinging door onto the sales floor, and were nearly concussed by a wave of high-pitched sound. Squealing voices, whirling gadgets, chattering pygmy puffs, crying babies. Harry cast a wordless Susurratio toward his own head, and then another at Ron. The taller man jumped.

“Blimey... Thanks, mate. That helps.”

At the front counter, George held court like a man possessed by an entire Death Day party’s worth of poltergeists. His laugh was loud enough to hear over the throng, his smile bright enough to light the marquee. It still did something to Harry, in the pit of his stomach, to see George in his element. A good something. Something like relief.

At George’s side was Harry’s godson, Teddy Lupin. George hired Teddy right out of Hogwarts, and they’d been working together for three years. He was easy to find in a crowd since his hair color was frequently electric blue. He’d pierced his nose once and his lip twice, and the hoops were stark black against his pinky-pale skin.

Teddy was (not-so-secretly) Harry’s favorite person in the world.

“Oi, Harry! Ron!” Teddy yelled, waving them over. “You won’t _believe_ the run on moon calves this year! It’s like people forget they can _breed_ them!”

“Hey, Ted,” Ron greeted him. “Where’s the old man want us working?”

“The _old man_ wants you hawking love potions, of course,” George crowed. He tossed Harry and Ron both nametags. It flashed when Harry pinned it on, and then curly script spelled out _Hazza_ across the brass.

“No, come on, George—” Ron was saying.

“Go tell some little witches how pretty they are, Ronniekins! Charm me some customers!”

Ron scowled and slumped his way around the counter. “My discount’s not worth it.”

“You can work the till, can’t you, Haz?” George spun away from the register like a circus barker. “I have a new line of Flavored Farts to push. Ha! Pushing farts!”

Harry grinned, because he couldn’t help it. Teddy laughed aloud.

“No problem,” Harry said, taking the owner’s place at the counter. The line to check out stretched straight down the main aisle, before curving to the left along the shopfront windows. Harry sighed.

“Buck up, grumpy crup,” Teddy told him as he punched in purchases. “It’s nearly the first.”

“I’m aware,” Harry replied, bagging up a young witch’s Skiving Snackbox.

“I know you’re doing the Sad Dad thing about your little girl starting Hogwarts. I get it. But think: No more Albus stomping about the place. It’ll be like banishing a boggart!”

Harry buffeted Teddy with his shoulder, trying not to smile. “Don’t talk about Al that way. He’s been fine.”

“He’s been _pining_ ,” Teddy shot back with waggling eyebrows. “If I listen to one more sentence that begins with ‘Scorpius says—’”

“Bugger off,” Harry snorted, and the wizard he was serving frowned. “Not you, sir, sorry. I was talking to this blue-haired menace over here.”

The wizard replied, looking skeptical, but Harry could barely pick up his voice.

With sound reduced to a whisper by the Susurratio charm, Harry had to pay more attention when people spoke. It was worth it, though, to smile placidly into the beet red face of a man trying to unstick himself from a One-Man Candy Jar.

“No, sir, the Jar has to be keyed to your magical signature,” Harry explained at normal volume. “It thinks you were trying to steal candy on the sales floor. But I’m sure it was mistaken.”

The wizard, impossibly, reddened.

“Where’s James?” Harry asked Teddy while he bagged his next customer’s purchases.

“Merlin knows,” Teddy shrugged. “Should’ve been here by now, but maybe therapy’s run late? You could send Prongs over to check with Luna. He’s been a right arse about keeping me in the loop, lately.”

“It’s not personal,” Harry said. “He’s doing it to all of us.”

Teddy’s blue eyebrow went up, and Harry had to look away. It was true, of course—James had grown distant, snappish, with most of the family, but Teddy had always been different. Even in the months right after the accident, James opened up to his elder godbrother. Moving Ted into Grimmauld Place had been one of Harry’s better decisions that year. Recently, though, things seemed to be getting worse, not better.

“I’m sure he’s just running behind,” Harry said, and Teddy rolled his eyes.

“Lily’s in the back, wrapping gift packages with Angie,” Teddy offered. “Albus is on the sales floor, somewhere. Good luck spotting the little Goblin.”

“He’s not that short!” Harry chastised, which made Teddy grin.

“Potter genetics. Short, scowling, and spectacled.”

“You mean handsome and heroic, I think.”

“Do I?” Teddy smiled at a weary witch dragging a crate full of school supplies and a very surly teenager. “Enjoy the school year!”

“Oh, I will,” the mother assured him. Harry smirked.

Luna confirmed, through her hopping Patronus, that James went straight home after physical therapy. It was nearly an hour before Harry saw hide-nor-hair of his children. Finally, Lily popped her bright red head out of the storeroom. “Dad, I’m hungry. Can we go for pasties?”

Harry checked his pocket watch. “Yeah, of course. Can you find Al? He’s on the sales floor. I’ll get George back here to cover the till.”

Lily took off, swimming upstream through the mass of Friday night shoppers. Harry lost sight of her almost immediately, and his hand went to the center of his chest out of habit. The gold pendant, imbedded with Protean and Caterwauling charms, was keyed to three wristbands worn by his (highly embarrassed) children. Al called it an invasion of privacy. Lily said she got it caught in her hair during Quidditch. James kept “losing” it under his bed. Harry patted his shirt front, but the necklace stayed silent and cool to the touch.

It wasn’t enough, sometimes.

When Lily returned, she had Albus by the wrist and Scorpius Malfoy by the hem of his very posh jacket.

“Dad?” Al frowned, before shrugging away Harry’s odd appearance. “Can Scorpius come for dinner? His mum has shopping to finish.”

“Hello, Mr. Potter!” Scorpius chirped in his posh accent. “Lovely to see you! What a busy day at Wheezes, isn’t it? Do you think these parents know their first year children won’t be allowed pygmy puffs and moon calves at Hogwarts? My father says a pet is a full-time commitment, although Mother rather likes those new puffs with the glittery hair—”

“Nice to see you, too, Scorpius,” Harry cut in when the blond paused for breath. “You’re welcome for dinner, if your parents are all right with it.”

“Oh! Well! It’s only Mother shopping with me this year, as Father is organizing the movers and…” He trailed off, and went very pink across the cheekbones and ears. “Well. Yes.”

“That’s fine. Just let me check in with her quickly, as soon as I’ve found Uncle George.”

“Found him,” Lily announced. She still hadn’t released the older boys. “He’s coming.”

“Thanks, Lil. Teddy, you want us to bring you dinner?”

His godson was attempting to wrap up a very large Waterworks Whirligig. His fringe was drippy. “Cheers! Whatever I can eat standing up in the back, yeah?”

“You got it.”

“I’m here, never fear!” George announced, vaulting the counter to half-hearted applause. “You’re a useless employee, Hazza. You’ve barely been here the hour.”

“I’m a _volunteer_ ,” Harry shot back. “And my kids are your slave labor.”

“Ha. Too true. My own kids make me pay them in Muggle video games.”

“Really?” Al perked up. “Which games?”

George waved a hand. “I’ve no idea. They just got a new one with dragons on the front. I’m sure Roxie’s looking for a newb to destroy.”

“You’re not cool enough to say that,” Teddy declared. “Not nearly cool enough.”

“Slander! Insubordination!”

“We’re going now,” Harry said, dropping his nametag in the bin under the counter. “Back in an hour or so.”

“Desertion! Defecation!”

“Did he mean to say ‘defection?’” Scorpius wanted to know.

Harry sighed. “Probably not. Go on,” he told the children, “out the back. I’ll speak to Scorpius’s mum, and meet you in a minute.” Albus scowled, dark brows meeting over a copy of Harry’s straight nose, but he let himself follow obediently behind his little sister as she dragged along his bemused best mate.

It wasn’t difficult to spot Astoria Malfoy. (Or was it Greengrass? Was the divorce finalized? What was her fiancé’s name, again? Oh, hell.) The former Mrs. Malfoy was taller than most of the people around her, with dark brown hair which she’d recently chopped into a blunt, fringed bob.

Harry took a few seconds to prepare himself, to slow his irrational heartrate. _People get divorces,_ he told himself firmly. _People have affairs_. The pep talk didn’t seem to be helping.

It made no sense, but he couldn’t help feeling like he was doing something wrong even speaking to Astoria. That was truly daft. He and Draco weren’t friends, and Harry didn’t need to choose a side. Astoria must have her reasons for carrying on such a long affair. It wasn’t Harry’s business. Unfortunately, Harry’d never been good at minding his own business.

Astoria Malfoy had done something totally out-of-character; there was a deep, guilty part of Harry that needed to know why. He found himself observing Astoria like a ‘person of interest,’ the way Gawain Robards had taught him, two decades ago.

There was only one area of Auror training which hadn’t come easily to Harry: offender profiling. It was a problem with his instincts, it turned out. Harry had spent his entire childhood, and three years in an active warzone, trusting his gut to steer him. It wasn’t clear to Harry why he liked people on sight, or why he shied away. He’d always thought his first impressions were spot-bloody-on. It was a blow to discover that wasn’t really the case.

For three years, Robards drilled him in things like facial symmetry, markers of age and illness, anthropometrics. Harry struggled to separate his personal feelings from his impressions. He had to learn to identify what made a person beautiful or bland, open or obfuscating, with no foreknowledge of their personality or history. It was difficult. Even though he finally had the words for _why_ it was difficult— _gray asexual_ —Harry still struggled to see a human body the way other people did.

So. Astoria Malfoy was taller than Harry, and leaner. No evidence of baby weight, yet. She wore expensive clothes in a casual way that other people envied. Pureblood posture. Harry mentally mapped the Golden Ratio over her frame, and found her arms a tad too long. She had a narrow nose and a pointed jaw. With the sharp new haircut framing them, her cheekbones looked lethal. Astoria’s teeth were extremely white, her skin closer to sand. Thin, arched brows. Dark brown, almond-shaped eyes and long lashes. There was the faintest hint of purple under them—sickness, or sleeplessness, or both.

Astoria was only a person, like any other, when you looked at her like a stranger. It was reassuring. Harry wondered, sometimes, if people thought he was checking them out while he profiled. He made sure to scowl whilst he did this sort of thing.

Luckily, Astoria was absorbed in reading the back of a package as Harry approached. He cleared his throat too loudly. She blinked. “Hello? May I help you?”

“Ah, right. Sorry. It’s Al’s father, but I’m using a Glamour.”

“Oh, of course. It’s very well done, Mr. Potter.”

“Good to see you,” he nodded, happily avoiding the name issue. “Scorpius wants to join us for a quick dinner, but I wanted to check with you first.”

“Thank you for your consideration,” she replied with serene politeness. “He has my permission. He can meet me at Zabini Couture after he’s finished.”

“Right,” Harry smiled, awkwardly. “That’s—right, great, then. How’re you?” He barely restrained his wince, and the urge to hit himself over the head with a Mallard Mallet. _(“Duck, or Be Ducked!”)_

“I’m very well, thank you.” She put a hand against her stomach, and Harry couldn’t help looking. He didn’t see any evidence of a baby bump yet; her dress was rather voluminous.

“Congratulations,” he found himself saying. “On the new… er…”

“The baby is much anticipated,” she said, smile turning a shade too sly. “I’ll let my fiancé, Vikram Thakur, know of your well wishes.”

Harry was sweating. Actually, properly sweating. He also laughed a little, high-pitched, and then wanted to Obliviate the entire street.

Astoria’s brown eyes went soft. “Truly, Mr. Potter. Thank you. We’re doing very well.”

“I’m really glad,” he said. “We just—Scorpius is such a great kid. I’m sure the next will be wonderful, too.”

“I agree,” she nodded, and then placed a manicured hand on his elbow. “Please tell Scorpius to meet me before seven o’clock. It was lovely to see you.”

“You too! Lovely!” Harry cleared his throat. “Bye, then!”

On balance, it could’ve gone a lot worse.

The Potters, plus the best of all possible Malfoys, waited in the back alley while Harry removed his Glamour. It left an itchy sensation under his chin every time. “Mr. Potter,” Scorpius said. “Do you think you can teach me to use a Glamour?”

“Probably, when you’re a bit older. Why not?”

Scorpius beamed. “I think I’d look smashing as a brunette.”

Al scoffed, “Why would you want brown hair? Your hair is so shiny.”

“Um, thanks?” Scorpius flushed. “Still, it’d be fun to change it up, now and again, don’t you think?”

Harry thought he’d look exactly like his mother (and also that Albus had a point, really) but he kept that to himself. The kids debated how and why they’d change their faces all the way to the café. Lily wanted purple hair and a nose like the lead singer of Light and Bolt, the embarrassingly-named Wizarding pop band she obsessed over. Albus just wanted to be taller.

Scorpius was in the middle of assuring Al that his height was “rather perfect for leaning against” when they bustled through the bright pink front door of Practically Perfect Pasties.

“Do you see Artie?” Lily wondered, poking Harry in his stomach. He needed to do more sit-ups.

“Hello Potters,” Flora Bulstrode greeted them from the coffee pot. “And Scorpius, hello.”

“Hello Mrs. Bulstrode,” Lily said. “Is Artie around?”

“You can go on back,” Flora told her. “I think she’s helping Millie with tomorrow’s bread dough.”

“Wicked!” Lily slipped around the counter and through the curtained door to the bakery kitchens. The other customers eyed their group with interest, but kept a respectful distance. It was one of many reasons Harry ate here several times a week.

“Hello,” Scorpius said, climbing easily onto a tall stool at the long front counter. “Is Artemis ready for school to begin again? Do you think she and Lily will be in the same house? We’d welcome them in Slytherin, to be sure! Lily seems very excited. I didn’t attend the London primary school myself, of course, but Albus said it was entirely different from Hogwarts.”

Al grunted his agreement, and tried to hop onto his own stool with dignity.

“Artie and Lily are both excited,” Harry said. “They haven’t stopped talking about it all Summer.” Flora poured him a cup of decaf coffee, and produced a cold creamer pot from under the counter. “Cheers.”

“I think Artemis might stage a tiny coup if she wasn’t Sorted with Lily,” Flora admitted.

Harry laughed. “I can’t imagine two eleven-year-olds better suited to a coup.”

“I’m very hungry,” Scorpius announced thoughtfully, squinting at the menu board. “I didn’t think I was hungry at all, but then I walked in and everything smells delicious, and _tada!_ Starving!”

“You’re in the right place,” Flora smirked.

“D’you not have beef and pickle on today?” Al asked.

“Sold out, I’m afraid. Ham and mushroom?”

“Yeah, all right,” Al grumbled, and Harry knocked him with an elbow. “Thanks, Mrs. Bulstrode.”

“Of course, Albus. What’ll it be for you, Scorp? The special?”

“Hmm. I do like leeks, but I also feel like something sweet. I suppose blackberry and apple wouldn’t be particularly filling?”

“Get the potato-leek,” Albus said. “I’ll split a sweet with you for afters.”

“Oh! Lovely! Yes, please!”

Harry had never met anyone who spoke with quite so many exclamations.

“Just the sausage rolls for me, Flora, thank you,” he said, and she stepped through the curtain to relay their orders. After dropping two warm mugs of pumpkin juice in front of the boys, she left to check on other customers.

Albus and Scorpius were extremely talkative, but also extremely secretive, which meant Harry had to pretend not to listen in as they dissected every possible outcome of the next year’s Hogwarts schedule. Scorpius had special permission to visit Hogsmeade on occasion, since his family lived on the outskirts, and Albus was finally old enough to visit, too.

Harry supposed only Malfoy would live there now.

“Hey Scorpius,” Harry interjected, a little hesitant. “If you don’t mind my asking, where is your mother moving to? I mean, where will she and your… er…”

Scorpius went pale, which was a trick-and-a-half for a Malfoy. “Um. Yes. Mother and Vikram will be living in London, as his business is here. She’s moving into his townhouse. Father and I will stay in Hogsmeade.”

“You’re staying with your father, then? He must be happy about that.”

“Yes! Not that there was really any question,” Scorpius prattled as the color returned to his cheeks. “I’ll visit Mother every week, of course, in the Summers, and we’ll organize the holidays together. Vikram and Father have some scheme for after the baby is born, splitting their time at home to help Mother while she recovers.”

Harry went still. He had to try very, very hard not to frown. “That sounds… practical.”

“I think babies are so sweet, don’t you? I’ve always liked babies. I remember when my neighbor, Mrs. Noroc, gave birth to Magnus. He’s seven, did you know?”

“I haven’t met him,” Harry admitted.

“Oh, well, he’s a terror these days, but he was a very nice baby. He was bald for more than _three years_.” Scorpius looked scandalized as Al slurped his pumpkin juice with a small smile.

“None of my kids were bald,” Harry found himself saying, and Al rolled his eyes.

“Don’t tell him about the _hair_ , Dad—”

“Did you know Albus was born with thick, blond hair?”

Scorpius’s silver eyes went wide. “No! Not really?”

“Really,” Harry laughed. “Kind of a custard color.”

“Dad!”

“But it all fell out before his first birthday, and grew in black overnight.”

_“Overnight?”_ Scorpius gasped, and grabbed Al’s chin to turn it toward him. “Accidental magic?” He tilted Al’s head back and forth, examining his cowlicks.

Harry shrugged. “We couldn’t keep it trimmed for years after that. Mine used to do the same thing, when I was young.”

“That’s amazing! Before you were even _one,_ Albus. You were a prodigy!”

“Merlin’s pants, it was only hair, and it looked like a dog’s breakfast all the time.”

Flora arrived with dinner at the perfect moment, because Harry didn’t really want to listen to Scorpius Malfoy complimenting Albus on his looks, when those looks were a time-delay replica of Harry’s own. It made him feel squirmy.

Lily dragged Flora and Millie’s daughter out of the kitchens with the same method she’d applied to Scorpius and Al. Artie allowed this for two or three steps before pinching Lily on the palm of the hand.

“Ouch! You gargoyle!”

Artie grinned, sliding through the gap in the countertop with an athlete’s grace.

“Hi, Mr. Potter,” she said, hopping onto a stool. “Scorpius. Dumbledork.”

Al flipped her two fingers, and Harry mumbled “Oi!” through a mouthful of sausage roll.

“Ready for Hogwarts, Artemis?” Scorpius asked.

“I hate school,” she said grimly.

“Really? I can’t imagine you’ll hate Hogwarts. It’s excellent!”

“D’you think you’ll be a Slytherin like your mums?” Al wondered.

Artie sighed theatrically. “Probably.”

“No, she won’t,” Lily said. “She’ll be a Lion, like me.”

Harry sipped his coffee quietly, because he thought Lily was dead wrong about that.

While the children debated Hogwarts houses with their mouths too full, Harry couldn’t help scanning the café. It was a busy night in Diagon Alley, but Practically Perfect Pasties was only half-full. It was, in Harry’s opinion, the best quick-stop restaurant in Wizarding London. The food was delicious, the coffee and tea were properly brewed, and the décor never veered into truly eccentric. They did all right, especially at lunch when the Ministry flooded the Alley with orders, but Harry knew they could be doing better. They _should_ be. It’d been twenty-one years since the war.

It was another reason Harry ate here regularly, and without a Glamour. Flora and Millie Bulstrode hadn’t fought for Voldemort, but they’d been tarred with the same Dark brush.

“You want to ask me about the interview,” Flora said in a low voice, coming up on Harry’s childless side.

His lip quirked. “Do I?”

“Obviously,” she scoffed, and threw her curtain of umber hair over one shoulder. “Though there isn’t much to say. Hermione asked, Millie and I are willing. I can’t say I’m looking forward to it.” Her eyes flitted beyond Harry, but the children were laughing and stealing bites off each other’s plates. Albus had his entire body curved around his dinner.

“She’ll do right by you.”

Flora’s eyes slid closed for a moment, before she visibly stiffened her spine. “I’m sure that’s true. More coffee?”

“No, thanks, I’ve got to get Scorpius back to his mum by seven.”

“I’ll grab the dessert from the back right away.”

When the sweeter pasties had been devoured, and the sun had set, and Lily had somehow managed to get clotted cream in her hair, Harry settled the bill with Flora. She passed him a bag with dinner for Ted.

“Compliments to Millicent,” he told her.

“I’ll pass it along.”

She started to count back change, but he waved it away. “When are you meeting with Hermione?”

“In two weeks, on a Friday,” she replied. “Did she not tell you?”

“Contrary to _The Daily Prophet_ , we don’t actually live in each other’s pockets.”

“No, I just meant—” She hesitated. “We all thought you’d be there. You and Ronald, both.”

Harry frowned. “Why?”

“I think some of us were hoping it’d be more of a… conversation,” she said, chewing her lip. “I think Pansy’s been girding her loins.”

Harry snorted a laugh. “Has she?”

“Do you think you could? Be there?”

“…You really want us to?”

She nodded. “I think it’d be good. To clear the air.”

Harry glanced over his shoulder, toward the corner where Artie had a wad of paper napkins, attempting to de-cream Lily’s ginger ponytail. Al and Scorpius had their black and blond heads bent together nearby, whispering furiously.

“I’ll be there,” Harry said. He couldn’t tell if it felt like a concession or a curse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A NOTE ON HARRY'S SEXUALITY IN THIS FIC:
> 
> In general, I want to avoid author's notes in this particular story. There are a few places I think they'll be necessary, and this is the first.
> 
> Harry identifies as gray asexual or "gray ace" at the start of this story (I'm using the American spelling, because I'm a Yankee). Toward the end, he'll be considering whether to use the term "demisexual." At some point, that's a label he'll embrace.
> 
> One of the major criticisms of Rowling's work is that villain characters--or, more specifically, people Harry doesn't like--are described as ugly, while Harry's friends and comrades are not. Even when Harry is aware that a character should be good looking (think: Gilderoy Lockhart and Fleur Delacour), he never actually views them that way himself. He focuses on elements of their appearance which make them grotesque. When characters he loves really aren't attractive, objectively, he still describes their features in positive terms. Cho Chang is immediately attractive to Harry, but he finds her less beautiful as he gets to know her. Ginny doesn't get much description until after Harry develops romantic feelings. Snape is probably not a great looking guy, but he's also subject to Harry's biased point-of-view... So, who knows?
> 
> In general, Harry doesn't describe how people look in any detail. This is why Rowling could make the case for a canon black Hermione; in seven books of acquaintance, Harry never describes her skin tone. Asexuality is a spectrum (like all sexuality), and you'll get a very clear idea of how Harry's romantic and sexual drives function in this fanfic. That said, I'm not trying to create a "typical demisexual" character, because there is no such thing. Harry's difficulty seeing people objectively is personal to him. It's not BECAUSE he's demisexual, but it is RELATED TO his demisexuality.


	4. August 31st, 2019

**Saturday, August 31 st, 2019**

* * *

Harry is flying. It’s wonderful.

The air above the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch is far too hot, too muggy, to stay still for long, so Harry circles as fast as he dares above the flashing crimson bodies below. Gryffindor kit, gold trim on red leather. Sleek ebony broom of a quality no student should own. Harry can feel the smooth acceleration, the carved grip under his gloves.

They must be practicing, because the stands are empty. There are no opposing colors on the field—no yellow, blue, or green—and, anyway, it just feels simpler. Kinder. The sky is impossibly blue. Summer Quidditch practice at Hogwarts? This isn’t how things work, is it? But it's familiar, somehow.

Four of the heads flashing by below him are ginger. He counts them to himself: Ron. George. Ginny. Fred. He realizes, then, that this can’t be real. He’s not here, and neither are they. It hurts worse than a bludger to the gut.

The long-haired ginger player looks up, and her eyes meet Harry’s.

It isn’t his wife. His Ginny.

It’s Lily on that broom.

And the one swinging a Beater’s bat, laughing with George? That’s James, isn’t it?

Harry wonders if this is what relief feels like to him now: This syrup-slow release of breath, the careful unclenching of his jaw. A nerve twinges in Harry’s neck, and it skitters and sizzles all the way through his fingertips.

He tries not to watch his own team as they practice maneuvers. He tries to keep his eye roaming, looking for the shine of the snitch, but he can’t seem to focus. Ron in the Keeper’s position. Angie, Spinnet, and Cho Chang: Chasing. Apparently, everyone is a Gryffindor today. Ella Flint circles the perimeter like a referee. There are too many players on the field, so there’s room for teal-haired Teddy, for Roxie, for bored Dominique. Millicent Bulstrode, whom Harry’s never seen on a broom before. Albus, improbably, stands at ground level with a clipboard and a whistle. Harry watches as he makes untidy notes with his brow furrowed. After a few minutes, Scorpius Malfoy joins him. Even in Harry’s own fantasy, Al won’t go anywhere without Scorpius.

No one seems to be keeping score, and no one seems worried about that.

Someone else is circling the pitch, too, probably hunting the snitch. Did they even bother to release a snitch? It doesn’t seem likely. It doesn’t seem like the kind of thing they’d bother with today. Harry squints into the butter-yellow sun, trying to make out his red-robed shadow.

“What are looking at, Potter?” Someone shouts, from far too close.

The shadow glides around, out of the glare, and smirks.

It’s Malfoy, the elder. Draco.

It was always going to be.

* * *


	5. September 1st, 2019

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting into some of Harry's heavier issues--grief, anger, PTSD. This chapter is sad. Read when you are ready. Keep yourselves safe and healthy, my loves.
> 
> I'm feeling nervous about this one, but I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> Also: you can find some character and location inspiration photos on my Tumblr. Check it out if you're curious.
> 
> https://earnestdesire.tumblr.com/

**Sunday, September 1 st, 2019**

It wasn’t the first time Harry’d thought about Time Turners.

Thirteen years ago, Hermione got high on Healer-grade pain potions prescribed after Rose’s birth. She cried about her magical necklace. “The _artistry_ ,” she’d blubbered, “the magical science, all lost! All over a prophecy which _living people remembered!_ Oh Ron!”

Her husband hadn’t slept more than a few hours in days, so he patted her back listlessly and made a sympathetic sort of hum.

The Time Turners were caught in an endless loop of their own destruction. He’d seen it happen. Years later, he’d seen the cordoned-off section of the Department of Mysteries, where only the bravest researchers dared to tread. Harry knew the Unspeakables had to be looking for fixes, but even the wildest magic had limits. Wizards got on with their linear lives.

Harry asked Mione, once, how she’d ever gotten permission to use one to take extra classes. It was so ridiculous, so dangerous! But, of course, she hadn’t... at least, not yet. Future Dumbledore needed Hermione to have the device, because he needed Sirius Black to be saved. He went back in time—a series of small, clever leaps—and made sure she’d have it.

Simple. Inevitable. Circular.

And so, once in a while, Harry thought about Time Turners, about how very unavoidable the past had to be. Ginny and James went flying in dodgy weather. Harry watched from the ground, because he forgot his wand on the hall table. Lily at the Bulstrode’s restaurant. Albus at home in a strop. Snow, and wind, and wandless magic.

Inevitable.

“Can I have a Galleon for the trolley, Dad?”

Al’s question pulled Harry out of himself with a jerk. His middle-child, his mini-me, waited with raised eyebrows.

“Yeah, ‘course.” Harry dug out a Galleon each for the three kids. Lily was ecstatic, but James just shoved it into his pocket with a sniff. His eldest son had the hood of his jacket pulled up and his sunglasses on inside. A year ago, Harry would’ve poked fun at James’s attempt at subterfuge. Instead, he cast a silent Notice-Me-Not over the whole group.

King’s Cross Station was always busy, and Harry’s family always attracted attention. The powers-that-be put in the bank of Floos ten years ago, but Harry and Ginny rarely used them. Harry still got queasy when he traveled by fireplace. Wandering through a Muggle train depot dragging trunks and caged animals was odd, but doing it with several reporters and a small battalion of fans would’ve been insane.

This year, the Potters braved the Floo. It let out just around the corner, in a hidden alcove next to bicycle parking. The fireplace attendants looked ragged every September the First, hair frizzing and voices hoarse. Harry didn’t bother to Glamour for the trip to Platform 9 ¾; his kids were nearly as recognizable as he was. They all had to learn to endure the scrutiny.

Last year, Ginny smiled at every camera, chatted to every Quick-Quotes Quill. She did that, sometimes, especially when the Harpies were having a strong season. Ginny liked to talk, liked having her picture taken. Harry used to wonder how much of it was real, and how much she was doing to divert attention from himself. He loved her for it.

That seemed awfully self-centered now.

There were cameras all along the short walk to Platform 9 ¾. Harry’s Charm held firm.

The press had been briefed—again, for the hundredth time—on keeping well back from the Potter kids on the platform. After the accident, it seemed like they might be granted a reprieve. Those first few months were almost eerie, with no reporters trying to stop Harry in the supermarket or snap Lily’s picture at school. By March, though, the floodgates opened. Harry supposed the Wizarding World thought his family grieved long enough.

It was a bit of a trick getting James onto the platform, since he’d always taken it at a run. Even Harry had trouble walking straight at a brick wall without flinching. James managed it with his eyes closed. Albus didn’t dare take the piss.

Red train, white steam, gray concrete platform. Platform 9 ¾ never changed. That was a good thing, Harry thought.

“I see McLaggen,” James grunted nearly immediately. “I’ll be back.” He took off without his trunk, head down, hood still covering gingery hair. A Notice-Me-Not, like all deceptive magic, broke down when you crossed the barrier onto the platform. People made way for James with pity in their eyes. Harry wanted to hex them all _blind_.

James pounded his cane into the concrete floor defiantly, daring anyone to mention it. The sound of it echoed off brick walls. Muggles, for the most part, ignored James’s limp in public. Wizards weren’t comfortable with problems that magic can’t fix.

“Can I go find Scorpius?” Al said.

“Are they here yet?”

“Dunno,” Al shrugged, as if the question were ridiculous. What was properly ridiculous was coming to London every year to put your child on a train, which would then drop him off at the station in your home town. The Malfoys lived walking distance to Hogwarts. Ginny mocked them so much for it that even Harry begged her to _‘Merlin, Gin, leave off Malfoy already!’_

“Yeah, all right. Just come back in plenty of time to say goodbye.”

Albus walked through the steamy station with his hands in his pockets, shoulders up around his ears. Of all the Potter kids, it was Al who’d suffered the most from the media, growing up. Especially after he Sorted into Slytherin. Harry wondered what it felt like to Albus, having James pull the focus for terrible reasons. Harry was too chickenshit to ask.

Lily—his daughter, his baby—hadn’t stopped holding Harry’s hand.

If Harry had access to a Time Turner, could he go back and make sure Ginny was here, on the platform? Could he stop her from flying that day? Keep James home watching _Dr. Who?_ Could he remember his damn wand, cast a Cushioning Charm large enough to catch them both?

Of course, he couldn’t. A Time Turner only allowed you to reverse five hours, and Harry never did figure out how Dumbledore walked the timeline back so many months. Hermione said, once, that time travel broke one of the Wizarding world’s most important laws. That it was dangerous. That it ruined lives. Harry needed, more than ever, to believe that was true.

Hermione sprung fully-formed from his memory, appearing at his side with a weary huff. She leaned into kiss him on the cheek, her lips a bit sticky with gloss. She was wearing a blue dress and no jacket. Mione had been overheated, non-stop, for the last few months.

“At least they’re keeping back,” she remarked without preamble.

She frowned toward the reporters, clustered together a few train cars away. Several flashbulbs went off. Harry adjusted his glasses.

“Rose ran after Al as soon as we arrived,” she said, digging into her handbag. Her arm disappeared down to the elbow. Hermione loved a good Extension Charm.

Brown-haired Hugo barreled into Hermione’s hip, making her stumble. “Mum! I have to tell Tad about the fanged geraniums!” Harry’s eye followed a pointed finger down the platform.

Pansy and Blaise Zabini stood with their two sons, Massimo and Taddeo. They were all wearing black. Massimo was seventeen, in his last year at Hogwarts. He looked very much like his father—elegant, expensive, terminally bored. Shrewd little Tad wouldn’t start Hogwarts until next year; he went to the primary school with Hugo.

“Of course,” Hermione answered her son, with a nervous glance Harry’s way. “Let’s say hello. We’ll just be a minute.”

“No problem,” Harry said. He definitely did not watch her walk away.

Lily’s hand was getting sweaty, but Harry had no desire to let go. He wished James and Al hadn’t run off so quickly. How long would Lily let him do this? Hold hands at Platform 9 ¾? James grew out of it in only a year. Albus never allowed it at all.

Speaking of Al, he and Rose had apparently located the Malfoys. Astoria and Draco were both here, and plenty of people stared at them, too. Harry supposed he was grateful for the divided spectacle. There was a whispering cloud of onlookers circling the Malfoys, but only Scorpius showed any sign that he’d noticed. Rose read something aloud as she walked. Al was too busy digging through his school satchel. Astoria smiled placidly, like a posed portrait, and Draco wore a habitual scowl.

The whole group drifted toward Hermione and the Zabini family. They’d acquired Fleur while Harry wasn’t watching, and 16-year-old Dominique. Watching Dom watch Massimo, Harry figured that wasn’t a surprise. Parkinson called Angie over to air-kiss like Muggle movie stars. Angie’s daughter Roxie tossed Dom a Rememberall, and Harry saw all three upperclassmen jump when it lit up bright red.

Harry started to feel silly, standing here alone while his family smiled with Slytherins. People watched Harry with sympathy in their eyes. Harry wanted to scream at them to _mind their own fucking business._ He bit down on his tongue. Lily was oblivious, which helped, but this just wasn’t what Harry had expected.

He told Ron he wouldn’t be doing this alone.

“Harry? Lily?” The voice had never been more welcome.

“Hey, Percy,” Harry rasped.

“All set for the schoolyear, Lily Luna?” Harry’s brother-in-law wanted to know, adjusting silver spectacles on his long nose. Percy wore a three-piece suit under his Ministry robes, and sweat had gathered at his hairline.

“Hello Audrey,” Harry said, leaning in to buss her cheek. Percy’s wife wore a pale blue suit, as well, even though she taught third year at the London primary school. And it was a Sunday. Percy and Audrey didn’t seem to own anything other than suits.

“Oh, Harry!” Audrey smiled, though it went a bit wonky. “How are you doing, love?”

“Ah. Er, pretty well. Excited for Lily’s first year.”

“I’m sure,” Audrey said in a voice that implied she was not at all sure.

“Molly’s prepared to give you the ins and outs of Hogwarts,” Percy told Lily, chest puffed with pride. “She did very well on her exams last year, very well indeed.”

“A chip off the old block?” Harry said.

“A credit to the family,” Percy chortled, but then added, “just like her mother.”

Audrey blushed. Percy was never quite as awful as he seemed.

Lily and Molly were talking, but quietly. Molly did everything quietly. Her younger sister, Lucy, wasn’t with them—probably because she was a constant flight risk. They’d have found her on the roof of the Hogwarts express, or trying to abscond with a stranger’s toad.

Percy drew the girls into a long-winded discussion about Hogwarts professors, so Harry’s attention began to drift. He had one eye on James, seated on somebody’s trunk near the rear of the train. He chatted with a few other Gryffindors. It was so nice to see him smiling.

With the other eye, Harry watched the group surrounding Albus. Malfoy had a hand on Scorpius’s shoulder, and a frown on his pale, pointed face. Harry tried to remember the last time he’d seen Draco Malfoy actually smile. It had to be before sixth year at Hogwarts, so… 23 years? Bloody hell.

It wasn’t that Malfoy seemed unhappy—on the contrary, he was always engaged in the conversation, nodding thoughtfully and responding with expansive hand gestures. His white blond brows were always moving, and he touched his beard too much. The beard had been a shock the first time Harry saw it, right after Malfoy finished house arrest. It was neatly trimmed, only an inch long, but full and white as Father Christmas. If Father Christmas had cheekbones like Benedict Cumberbatch.

Malfoy tilted his head to one side whenever he thought someone made a good point. He scrunched up his nose. He chewed both his lips simultaneously. He ran his fingers through his beard when he sighed. But Malfoy never, ever smiled.

It was odd, wasn’t it? It seemed odd.

Malfoy raised one brow, pursed his lips. Harry heard Parkinson lift her voice above the din, “No, darling! Never! You’re making that up!”

Waving a hand between Angelina and Astoria, Malfoy huffed, “You know what I mean! You were there!”

Angie started to laugh, head thrown back. Fleur rolled her eyes, said something too quiet to make out. Hermione smiled.

Harry had to look away, toward the idling train. His stomach muscles were clenched, and he felt a moment of panic that he might be sick.

“Dad?” Lily said, tugging at his hand. “Artie just got here.” Harry glanced toward the platform entrance. It was easy to pick out Millicent Bulstrode carrying a large cat in a blue plastic crate.

“Right,” Harry said, “excuse us, Percy, Audrey. We’ll catch up later at the Burrow, yeah? Have a good term, Molly.”

“I will,” she whispered. Audrey patted Harry’s shoulder with a sad smile.

“D’you think Artie knows how to get into Gryffindor tower?” Lily wanted to know, pulling Harry along beside her. “James and Al told me all about it. I haven’t told Artie yet. What if she gets lost?”

“There are prefects to help you find your way around,” Harry said. “If Artie Sorts into Gryffindor, she’ll have lots of help figuring it out.”

“She’ll be in Gryffindor, won’t she?” Lily bit her pink lip.

“Even if she isn’t, or you aren’t, she’ll still be your friend. You know that, don’t you?”

Lily thought hard for a moment, then nodded, “I guess so.”

Harry dug a smile out of somewhere. _Dad of the Fucking Year_.

Harry chatted to Millicent and Flora for a few minutes while Lily examined Artemis’s new cat. He had a hand over his chest, tapping his Protean pendant, but he did manage to relax enough to stop grinding his teeth. “What’s your cat’s name?” Harry asked Artie.

“Conan the Barbarian.”

Harry blinked. “Oh. Really?”

“Yeah?” Artie scoffed. “ _Obviously_.”

“Right. Good name.”

A few minutes later, Luna arrived on the platform with her towering twins. Their father, Rolf, was overseas on a research trip. The boys greeted Harry and Lily politely before drifting off toward their fellow Ravenclaws. The Lovegood-Scamander twins drifted pretty much everywhere. The entire family seemed to arrive places mostly by accident.

“Millie,” Luna was saying, “I was wondering if you’d share the recipe for your peach pralines?”

“Why?” Millicent asked, crossing thick arms over her large chest.

“We have a minor infestation of flesh-eating slugs in the garden. The combination of peaches and muscovado sugar should prove appealing enough.”

“Appealing?” Flora said. “To slugs?”

“Oh, yes. I’ll line the garden path with pralines, and the hungry slugs should march right out the front gate.”

Harry caught Millicent’s eye, and shrugged.

“Sure, Lovegood, no problem,” she sighed. “I’ll Owl it over.”

Luna smiled beatifically. “Thanks ever so.”

Hermione coaxed Al and Rose back over to Harry, and his middle child permitted Harry to hug him (a little too tightly).

“I know you’re going to be fine,” Harry said quietly into Al’s messy hair. “And I want you to know… I’ll be fine, too.”

Albus stiffened. “D’you promise?”

“Yeah. Yeah, mate, I promise.”

Al nodded against Harry’s shoulder, and then stepped away. “I’ll send Owls.”

“I know. Look after your sister.”

“She’s going to be a Gryffindor,” Al frowned, lips twisting.

Harry snorted. “Oh, yeah, mate. Definitely. But keep an eye out, anyway.”

Al rolled his eyes. “Fine.”

Luna was whispering something in Lily’s ear, and Lily’s eyes were very wide. Harry tried not to worry. Luna meant well. In his first year, James had not been thrilled to discover that the thestrals were actually invisible.

Harry’s stomach dropped. _The thestrals_. James would be able to see the thestrals.

“Luna?” Harry croaked. His hands were shaking.

The blonde woman noticed the state of him immediately, and distracted the children with several pairs of strange sunglasses.

“Harry?” Hermione murmured. “What’s wrong?”

“James. I need to speak to James.”

“Yes. Yes, of course. I’ll go and get him. Stay here? Take a seat on Lily’s trunk, that’s right. Even breaths, Harry. I’ll be right back.”

Flora and Millicent had realized something was wrong. They stepped in front of Harry, forming a line with Luna and the chattering kids. Closed ranks. Hermione returned so quickly with James that Harry wondered if she Apparated them both.

“Dad?” James said, wary.

“I’m fine. No, don’t look like that, I’m _fine_. I just wanted to talk to you before you got on the train.”

“…Okay. You don’t look fine.” James moved closer, resting his weight on the handle of his aluminum cane. “What d’you need?”

“I wanted to—to tell you. To let you know—” Harry swallowed hard. “The thestrals, James. I wanted to warn you about the thestrals.”

James’s freckled cheeks went pale, and he slouched further to one side. “Yeah?”

“You know you’ll be able to see them.”

“I—Yeah.”

“I was in fifth year, too, the first time I knew they were there,” Harry admitted in a low voice. James bit his lip. “I thought the carriages moved on their own, you know?”

“I already know about thestrals, Dad.”

“I know you do,” Harry said, blinking too much. “You thought about it already, I’m sure. But I didn’t—I didn’t want you to realize what it meant to see them, right there in front of everyone.”

James’s nostrils flared. “I’m not a first year. I’m not going to freak out about some creepy skeleton horses. I’m not _you_.”

“No,” Harry agreed. “You aren’t. I know.”

His hands were still shaking. Why couldn’t he stop? Harry drew an uneven breath.

“So. That’s—that’s all. And, I mean,” Harry tried to smile. “I love you.”

James didn’t say anything for a long moment. “…Love you, too.”

“Sorry. Just—”

“‘S all right, Dad.” James looked away, and Harry caught Rose sneaking glances at them both over her new glasses. “I gotta go, yeah? Find a compartment.”

“Right. Of course.”

James waged a very brief battle with himself, before he leaned down far enough to thump Harry on the back. It was almost a hug.

“See you at Christmas,” James rumbled, and thumped off down the platform with his gilded trunk floating behind. The reporters were craning their necks, quills scratching, and Harry didn't know how to make himself look normal enough.

“Miss you already,” he whispered into the wind.

Later that night, Hermione’s house seemed very empty without Ron in the kitchen and Rose stretched out on the living room rug. Harry joined the Weasleys at the Burrow for the annual school sendoff luncheon, which ran (as usual) long into the evening. After, he followed his best friend home like a lost kneazle.

“Long day,” Mione muttered as she clicked on their magic-friendly television.

“The longest.”

“You did really well, Harry.” He shot her a look, and she shot it right back. “You did! It was difficult, but your kids were on time, and healthy, and they went to school with all their underwear packed.”

“High bar you’re setting there.”

“You did well,” she insisted. Harry sighed.

“Should we watch the new _Star Trek?”_ he asked.

“Ron will kill me for watching without him…”

“I won’t tell him, if you won’t,” Harry promised, as she started up the familiar theme music. He would also not tell Hermione that he’d seen this episode with Ron and Teddy last Friday night, after Wheezes closed. Deception, all around.

Harry was kicking himself for that now. He could’ve used the distraction.

 _Merlin, don’t think about Malfoy, or Malfoy’s strange marriage, or Malfoy’s really fucking strange divorce_.

He couldn’t help himself. He didn’t want to think about his friends—his family—at the Malfoy dinner table. He didn’t want to wonder if they talked about Hogwarts, about Lucius, about the war. He didn’t want to think about it because he didn’t want to _know_.

Harry leaned his head back into the sofa, brain whirring against his will.

…It had been the letters, probably.

In the year after Azkaban, during the first fifth of his house arrest, Draco Malfoy wrote apology letters. Dozens and dozens of them. He’d written more than a letter a week, to be sure.

The first letter Harry knew about went to Luna Lovegood. Perhaps, Malfoy had felt safer starting out with someone like Luna. She was unfailingly just, uncommonly kind. Yes, she’d been kept prisoner in his creepy medieval dungeon, and yes, she’d been tortured during her stay there. But Malfoy hadn’t captured her, held her, tortured her himself… Harry didn’t think so, anyway. He’d never actually asked. The point was: Luna forgave Malfoy quickly, completely, and they’d been actual friends, after that. Harry didn’t think people made friends with their torturers.

The letters kept coming. Neville Longbottom. Katie Bell. Dean Thomas. Hannah Abbott. Oliver Wood. Hagrid. Nearly six months in, the first letter arrived for a Weasley—addressed to Bill. Nobody knew what to think. Then another came, this time for Molly. For Arthur. A letter to Fleur. One came for George, but he never read it. Harry’d been there when the parchment went up in a curl of white smoke.

Ginny got a letter, too. Harry asked her, more than once, what Malfoy had written. She never said. There were a lot of things Ginny never said, and now she never would.

The only letter Harry actually read was to Ron. It was long-winded, eloquent, but so aggressively civil that it made for difficult reading. It contained the words _reprehensible_ and _furthermore_. Malfoy made no excuses for himself, asked for no forgiveness from Ron. He listed his crimes, in detail, and then apologized for them. One by one. Insults. Hexes. Poison. Fiendfyre. Ron found the whole thing infuriating, at the time, but he admitted, years later, that he’d never gotten rid of the letter. That he pulled it out, sometimes, to remind himself. Harry never could ask what Ron needed to remember.

Hermione’s letter came near the end of the year. She only said, “It’s enough.”

Harry was prepared, at all of twenty-self-righteous-years-old, to mark Malfoy’s letter ‘return to sender.’ He was prepared to feed to it to Buckbeak the hippogriff. He was prepared to tear it into tiny, tiny pieces, and put those pieces through his Muggle paper shredder. He was not prepared—not at all—to be the only person Draco Malfoy felt deserved no apologies.

It had been twenty years, and Harry still couldn’t work that one out.

Harry’s missing letter wasn’t a secret, though Harry never brought it up. One day, during Sunday dinner at the Burrow, George said, “Heard the Baby Death Eater didn’t send you a letter, Harry? Knew he was full of nogtail shit.” Harry only nodded, and Ron laughed, and Ginny pressed her lips together until they disappeared. It became a kind of shorthand: _Harry never got a letter_. It took on a life of its own.

_“I heard Draco Malfoy got his potions Mastery.”_

_“Who cares? Harry never got a letter.”_

_“Draco Malfoy got engaged.”_

_“Poor girl. Harry never got a letter from that man, you know.”_

_“Draco and Astoria Malfoy are expecting a baby.”_

_“Did you know Harry still hasn’t gotten a letter? What kind of father is that?”_

Harry hadn’t heard it in a long time (years probably) but he thought about it now. Not that getting a letter from Malfoy when Harry was still wearing Chudley Cannons underpants would have _fixed_ anything, would have made them _friends_. Still.

“Was Malfoy seeing a therapist after the war?” Harry asked, suddenly. “Is that why he wrote those letters?”

Hermione hesitated, eyes on the television. “Why do you ask?”

“Dunno,” Harry shrugged, although he doubted it was convincing. “It seems like a therapy thing to do.”

“Well, yes, he was,” Hermione said carefully. “Not at that time, though. Not until a few years later. The letters were… I don’t think anyone even knew he was doing that, until he’d already begun.”

“Oh.”

“You could…” She cleared her throat, and it made a little hiccup sound. She did that when was censoring herself—she did it a lot when George started complaining about ‘unfair Ministry regulations.’ She also did it when her desire to explain _absolutely everything about every topic ever_ ran into conflict with her clients’ confidentiality. But Malfoy wasn’t a client, so it was likely the censoring thing. “It’s been long enough, I think. Enough distance from the war, maybe? You could just ask Draco why he never wrote to you.”

“I don’t really care,” Harry lied. Hermione huffed, and hit pause on the remote.

“Clearly.”

“What could he say that would make it all right? More all right than it is, I mean? We were only twenty. I’ve had a long time to get over it.”

“Are you?”

“What?”

“Over it?”

Harry wanted to snap back, but he didn’t. He took a breath. “I just don’t think about it.”

“But we’re talking about it now,” she said, with the air of someone who’d talked about it more than enough.

“For the first time in—Merlin, I don’t know, Mione! What good would it do?”

“None, possibly,” she allowed. “But I don’t think it would make things worse.”

“Things are fine. I can be civil with the man, and have his kid at my house, without trying to reconcile every shitty piece of our shitty history.” Hermione made that sound again, and Harry groaned, “What?”

“It’s not like you, you know,” she told him, in a tone of voice that had once made Snape call her an insufferable know-it-all. “You don’t just let things lie. You don’t ignore the things that really bother you, and you don’t speculate endlessly for years about questions with readily available answers.” Hermione was on a roll, now, clipping every consonant until her speech sounded like a snare drum. “You have always sought answers, Harry. That’s who you are! But there’s a big ‘no fly zone’ over Draco Malfoy, and we’re all used to veering around him like an active volcano. It’s not—” She cut herself off. Harry’s ears were ringing, faintly.

“It’s not what?”

“It’s not fair.” She dropped each word like a stone. Harry’s jaw clenched.

“To who?”

 _“To me,”_ Hermione exhaled, shutting her eyes. “To Teddy. To Luna, and Andromeda, and Neville. We all have to act like we hardly know the man! You _know_ it’s not fair to Albus. And, most importantly, it’s not fair to Draco.” Her eyes opened, and they were so, so sad. “I know you don’t want to hear that.”

Harry did _not_ want to hear that. He wanted to stomp out of the room.

“You’re a better man than this,” she said softly.

“Maybe I’m not.”

“You can be. If you want to.”

And that was the bloody crux of it: Harry didn’t want to be better. Wiser. Kinder. It was pointless, and Harry was tired. He didn’t want to forgive Draco Malfoy. Lucius Malfoy. Pansy fucking Parkinson. He knew it was a character flaw, to hold these particular grudges when he’d let so many others go. If he were really the paragon the Wizarding World believed he was, he'd probably do that. It had been 20 years. He knew he was a hypocrite.

Merlin's balls, his head hurt. He lifted his glasses, rubbing his eyes.

Harry _could_ give up his resentment toward Malfoy, but he rather thought he'd given up enough.

“I’m tired,” he told Hermione. “I’m going home to bed.”

“No, Harry, just wait—”

“I’m tired,” he repeated. She looked stricken.

Hermione followed him down the hall to the entryway Apparition point, wringing her hands. “I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have brought it up—”

“You didn’t. I did.”

“Well, yes, but I should’ve left well enough alone for tonight.” She watched him pull on his jacket. “If Ron were here…” She sighed. “He’s so much better at this sort of thing.”

“Ron hates Malfoy.”

“Ron loves _you,”_ she argued back. “We both do.”

Harry paused in the middle of buttoning his coat. “I know. I love you, too.”

Her eyes were too shiny, her lip bitten. She wobbled her head back and forth, like she was trying to think of something to say. Harry reached out and pulled her into his arms.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. She shook her head, bopping him with her frizzy bun.

“We’re both sorry. Tired, and cranky, and sad. And sorry. It’ll be better in the morning.”

Harry hoped she was right. Hermione usually was.

He sat up in bed, wide awake, for far longer than he should have. There was a watery, abstract painting on the wall across from Harry’s bed. Dean painted it. Usually, the colors made Harry feel calm, restful, but tonight the rainy palette just made him antsy. He turned off the bedside lamp after an hour of staring, in a vain attempt to make himself sleepy. He kept hearing Malfoy say, _'_ _You know what I mean! You were there!'_ He kept picturing Angelina’s laugh. Fleur’s rolling eyes. That tiny, tucked-up smile of Hermione’s.

When Harry was Al’s age, he used a Time Turner to save Sirius Black from Azkaban. Looking back, there were a lot of things he could have done with that time.

He could have told the whole country about Pettigrew’s deception.

He could have made sure Remus Lupin took his Wolfsbane Potion.

He could’ve killed Peter Pettigrew, and Voldemort may never have had the means to rise.

He did not do those things, because that wasn’t how time travel worked. He couldn’t make his own history untrue. He couldn’t rewrite his failures, correct his own wrongs. It would be easy to hate the weakness in that. So tempting to prune out all that pain.

The dangerous thing about time travel, Harry thought, was that the past was a thing that lived inside you.


	6. September 4th, 2019

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know! Another two chapters! I can't believe how quickly this story is coming along. Remember my hubris when I hit the weeds, friends. I'm Icarus flying loop-de-loops right now.
> 
> This fanfic has so many subscribers, and so many bookmarks (mostly private, which is totally cool, I get you). If you're following along and feeling up to it, drop me a quick note to say "hi." You could also let me know if you think I should include 'epistolary' in my tags. I don't want to be misleading, either way. I screen comments, so I won't post it publicly if you'd rather lurk. I'm flattered that so many people want to know where this story is headed. It's great motivation for me, so thank you!

**Wednesday, September 4 th, 2019**

Shouting from the Floo always sounded odd, crackling, like the person on the other end had a mouth full of Muggle Fizz Wiz candy. Harry drew the duvet over his head, folding further into the sofa. The motion rattled a bowl on his side table—the remains of optimistic oat porridge which Ted left for him that morning. It’d congealed into a gluey lump by midday, swimming in a shallow pool of warm milk.

Teddy was a good, kind man. Harry should eat the good, kind glue-porridge.

His stomach rebelled at the thought, and he groaned.

The Floo shouted again: “Harry James Potter! _(Crackle pop!)_ I know you’re there!”

Nobody should be shouting at Harry today, he decided. He felt strongly about that.

“If you do not answer this Floo RIGHT _(Pop! Pop!)_ NOW, I’m coming through!”

Nobody should be shouting but, if there was shouting to be done, it should not happen in his sitting room. Harry made a sound he was very glad nobody could hear. He peeled himself free of the duvet, adjusted his slipping sock, and shuffled his way toward the kitchen fireplace.

“Grimmauld Place is closed to visitors!” he shouted back, in an attempt at authority. “Please come back during operating hours!”

The head floating in his hearth was 50% green flame and 50% scowl.

“Are you ill?” Floo-Hermione wanted to know.

Harry scratched his head. “Ish.”

“Are you ill, or are you _(Pop!)_ sulking?”

“Ha. Neither.” Harry slumped into a seat at his kitchen table, laying his head down on top of his arm. The table was sticky. As was the inside of Harry’s mouth.

“You’re drunk.”

“I don’t drink,” Harry mumbled into his elbow. Hermione rolled her eyes.

“Fine. You’re _high_.” She made the word so long that it popped twice in the middle.

“They’re potions, and they’re prescribed by a Healer, and I followed the instructions on the label, so bugger off.” He grimaced. “Please, and maybe thank you.”

“They were prescribed months ago, Harry! _(Crrrrackle!)”_ She ran ghostly-green fingers down the side of her face, lips pursed tight. “It’s not even noon. Draught of Peace is meant to be taken at bedtime.”

“Bedtime is the time I go to bed,” Harry said, “which was four in the morning. So.”

“Honestly!” Hermione cried.

“Best policy,” Harry muttered, feeling really very sleepy.

“Tell me who I need to Owl, Harry. Tell me who you need. Dean? Luna? Neville?”

“Animal, mineral, vegetable?”

“Sod it. I’ll Owl them all.”

“I took a _sick day_ , Mione.”

“You aren’t sick. You’re sad.”

Harry raised his eyebrows toward the fireplace. “Then I took a sad day. It’s allowed.”

“Technically speaking,” she said, “you’ve taken three.”

“Are we speaking technically? When’d that happen?”

_“Harry.”_

“Is this where you tell me the thing about how I’ve got two ears and one mouth?”

The corners of her own singular mouth twitched. “So listen more and talk less.”

He cupped a hand around one ear and waited.

“I will Owl Dean and Neville. Do you need Luna to stop by?”

“No,” he sighed. “I’ll make an appointment. Like a bloody baby.”

“For heaven’s sake, I don’t think you’re being a baby. No one thinks that!”

Harry wasn’t sure that was true, but arguing with Floo-Hermione was nearly as impossible as arguing with her in person. He managed to prop his head up on his fist and blink his eyes open wider. He tried on a smile.

The smile must not have gone well, because Hermione looked worried. “Perhaps Ron should come back early,” she said.

“No! He can’t miss the final day!”

“It’s only one day early, and he goes every year—”

Harry shook his head too hard. “No, Mione! It’s the finish line! Who will kiss the hands and shake the babies?” He rubbed his forehead. “Wait. What?”

“Fine,” she said with an exasperated smile. “I won’t worry him. But, in exchange, _you_ must stop worrying _me.”_

Harry would like to stop worrying Hermione. And Ron. And all of their friends. He didn’t know how to accomplish that, though, since everyone had decided to take over Ginny’s worrying duties after the accident. When one person (his wife) worried about Harry, it felt sort of… nice. Attentive. When everyone in Harry’s life worried about him, all at the same time, it was a bit like being smothered to death by puppies.

“I could Owl Dean,” Harry offered. “I have an owl. ‘S a good owl.”

Mione snorted green smoke. “Pellimore is a very nice owl, but you cannot to be trusted to use her.”

“Oi!”

“You’re falling asleep again. On your kitchen table.”

“I’m thinking. Just closing my eyes to think. Thoughtfully.”

“I will send the Owls, and you will Floo Luna’s office as soon as I disconnect.” Her tone brooked no argument. Harry wanted to come up with one, sort of, because he had _issues_ with being ordered around.

Thinking about his _issues_ made him wince. “Yeah, all right.”

“Have you written back to Lily yet?”

He winced again, harder. “…No.”

“Today, Harry. That happens today.”

“Yes, Mum.”

Hermione sniffed and crackled. “I’ll stop mothering you when you stop needing it.”

“Never, then?”

Her expression softened. “Never.”

“Are you in the office?”

“I am. And I need to get back to work. The poachers I was telling you about—those awful people harvesting occamy eggs? They’re coming in at three with their solicitor. Trying to settle out of court, if you can believe it! I’ve already told Laura we need to have an Auror on hand, just in case. I was reading up on the history of occamy breeding practices—”

“Mione!” Harry cut in. “Go back to work.”

“Oh. Well, yes. I’ll come by with Hugo after I’m finished here. Around seven?”

“Fine.”

“You’ll be all right until then?”

“I’m Flooing my therapist. Go back to work.”

“All right.” She hesitated, before she nodded decisively. “See you tonight.”

Harry waved. “Tonight. Okay. Bye.”

_“(Crackle! Pop!)_ Goodbye!”

Harry decided that coffee was needed before he spoke to anyone else today. Tea was a lovely drink and all, but Harry preferred a stronger kick of caffeine. He liked the smell of it, the bitter aftertaste. Neville tried to turn Harry on to yerba mate, but it tasted the way grass clippings smelled.

Grimmauld Place had a very nice warded coffee maker, imported from Japan (as most magic-friendly electronics were). It also had a shiny microwave which Molly Weasley frowned at every time she visited. It did not, sadly, have a House-elf. Kreacher had been gone longer than Lily’d been alive. She never knew the grouchy old Elf. Something twisted in Harry’s chest.

_Issues_. Right. But first, coffee.

It took most people, including Harry, by surprise when Luna closed up _The Quibbler_ and decided to be psychotherapist.

It was Luna’s third career, but it looked like she’d finally found her calling. She often said, _“Magizoology gave me Rolf, and the boys. The Quibbler was for Daddy. Healing is all mine.”_

It took her five years to make the transition, since most of her N.E.W.T.s were in the wrong subjects. She’d qualified and joined a London-based practice three years ago. Harry couldn’t help feeling it happened just in time.

The practice was located near St. Mungo’s, and they did a lot of back-and-forth with the Healers there. Of the five therapists on staff, Luna was the youngest and the least experienced. Harry met with them all at least once. It took a few tries to match him up with the right grief counselor, and he’d sat in on the kids’ early appointments, too.

At first, Harry’d been hurt—insulted, even—when Luna told him that she wasn’t willing or able to treat him herself. Harry trusted Luna. He knew she wouldn’t take all of his thoughts and fears and _brokenness_ to the press. She explained patiently that she and Harry had too much shared life experience to be effective in therapy. Too much shared brokenness. Too much love.

He’d been more openminded, after that.

Sol Eisenberg was older than Harry by two decades and, were he Muggle, could be looking toward retirement. Thankfully, most wizards kept working well past their hundredth birthday. Harry couldn’t fathom addressing his _issues_ with somebody new.

Sol met Harry at the bright green door of the clinic, smiling. He looked his patient up and down over stylish spectacles. “You look dreadful. Best get in here.”

Harry breathed out a sigh of relief.

Sol’s office wasn’t the wood-and-wisdom space Harry had expected, all those months ago, after years of watching TV therapists dispense advice from leather armchairs amidst mahogany bookcases. Sol liked the color pink. His office door was magenta, the curtains watermelon. Harry took a seat on a rose-and-gold brocade sofa, dropping his travel mug on the side table.

Sol sat across from him, ensconced in blush velvet, one ankle resting on his knee.

“We knew September the first would be difficult,” Sol said, wasting no time or breath. “Did you implement the action plan?”

Harry nodded. “I called out Monday.”

“And yesterday. Today, too.”

“Er… Right.”

“Did you make sure Teddy was home on Monday?”

“Yeah,” Harry sighed. “For all the good it did. I spent the whole day on the sofa watching _Homes Under the Hammer_.”

“Did Ted join you?”

“Mostly. He left at noon to take Victoire out to lunch.”

Sol frowned, but only said, “Fair enough. And what happened that evening?”

“What—” Harry cleared his throat. “What d’you mean?”

The older wizard observed Harry again over tortoise shell reading glasses. Harry shifted awkwardly on the sofa. He regretted the decision to skip shaving, and he hadn’t noticed the coffee stain on his kecks until he after he left the house.

“Erm, I suppose… I didn’t sleep well,” Harry admitted. “Or… at all, really.”

Sol’s expression didn’t change. Harry felt flushed.

“And I didn’t eat. Haven’t been hungry.”

“How many meals have you skipped?”

“Five, maybe?”

“Including breakfast, Harry.”

“I don’t always eat breakfast.”

“Are we having that kind of session today?” Sol wondered, black eyebrows going up. “Are we in a sarcastic, pedantic mood?”

Harry looked away, chewing the inside of his cheek. “Possibly.”

“I see. Then I’ll fill in the blanks, shall I?” When Harry didn’t stop him, Sol leaned forward in his seat. “You knew Hogwarts drop-off was going to challenge your mental health. That it would throw you off balance.”

“The kids, too,” Harry muttered.

Sol inclined his head. “Especially James. We had an action plan. James and Albus had scheduled counseling sessions yesterday. Did they go?”

“Yeah. McGonagall sent me a Patronus to check in.”

“Good. And Lily? How was Sorting?”

Harry’s throat closed. His back went rigid. He blinked. Blinked. Tried to swallow.

“Ah,” Sol breathed, leaning back again.

“Gryffindor,” Harry managed.

“Am I correct in assuming,” Sol said carefully, “that Artemis Bulstrode is _not_ a Lion?”

Harry blinked again, but he nodded, too.

“Lily must be very sad about that.”

Blink. Nod.

“Do _you_ feel sad about that?”

Harry thought about it. He’d been fairly certain that Artie would Sort into Slytherin. Both her mums were Snakes, their families in Slytherin for generations. Family values, Harry had learned, were the strongest indicator of Hogwarts House placement. The Sorting Hat wasn’t a tool designed to bring out the best in children, but to provide them a comfortable place to land—a community of students who came from similar backgrounds and had similar goals.

“I’m happy for Artie,” Harry realized, slowly. “Lily is really upset, though.”

“Would you be upset if your best friend ended up in a rival house?”

“I mean, yeah. ‘Course. When I was eleven.”

“Do you think students can stay best friends, if they aren’t Sorted together?”

Harry frowned. “You know I do.”

“So, it seems to me,” Sol remarked, as if it were inconsequential, “that Lily is feeling very sad and upset. You, however, don’t agree with her reasons.”

“I’m her dad,” Harry bristled. “It upsets me when she’s upset.”

“Sure. But you’re an adult, with an adult perspective. Lily is a homesick child.”

He grimaced. “You think she’s homesick?”

Sol pursed his thin lips. Harry drew a deep breath.

“Right, yeah. Of course, she is.”

“Were you homesick when you got to Hogwarts?”

Sol did this sort of thing a lot: Asking Harry questions he must know the answer to already. They’d been over the particulars of Harry’s brutal childhood. They’d beaten that thestral into the ground.

 _Don’t think about thestrals_ , Harry told himself.

“What was the question? Was I homesick?”

“Mmhmm.”

“No. I was happy. It’s the best place I’ve ever been.”

Sol pursed his lips again. “Is it? Still?”

“…What?”

“You said, ‘It’s the best place I’ve ever been.’ Present tense. Is it still the best place? Even now, after all your tribulations during school? After the Battle?”

Harry hesitated, taking a swig from his coffee. “Yeah, I guess so. Is that bad?”

“Why would that be bad, Harry?”

“‘S not normal, is it?” He fiddled with the cup lid, bouncing a knee. “Most people don’t think about school that way anymore, I think. In adulthood. Especially not if they got attacked at school every year.”

“I think most children who are attacked at school feel safer at home. You didn’t.”

“No.”

“It stands to reason you’d remember it fondly, despite everything that happened there. Hogwarts was your escape.”

Harry sucked in a breath, heart stuttering. The cup trembled in his hands.

Sol uncrossed his legs and put his elbows on his knees. “Your kids don’t need an escape, Harry. They love you. They’re safe with you.”

Harry put his cup down again with a _clunk_. He wiped his scarred forehead with the back of his hand. “Not always. Not all the time.”

“Yes, Harry, all the time. They’re homesick because they miss you. As it should be.”

“Even James?” Harry asked in a small voice.

“Oh, I think so. Don’t you?”

“I’m not sure anymore.”

Sol nodded, looking thoughtfully over Harry’s shoulder. Maybe he was looking at the magical painting above the sofa—a sun which slowly set, and then rose again, soft in shades of red, coral, and rouge.

“I think you should ask him,” Sol declared. “All your children, actually. You should ask whether they miss home, and if they’re happy at school.”

“‘Course I ask if they’re happy.” Harry thought a moment, then corrected: “I ask if things are going okay. That’s the same thing, isn’t it?”

“No,” Sol said. “You know it isn’t.”

“I don’t want to embarrass James, or Al. They hate that.”

“I’m not suggesting you send them each a Howler. No one else ever has to know what you’ve sent. I think your sons would benefit from their dad checking in on their happiness.” Sol smirked over the top of his glasses. “A parcel of chocolate frogs never goes amiss, either.”

Harry’s lips twitched into and out of a smile. “Lily’s letter was…”

“Hmm?”

“I don’t know. She’s sad, and disappointed. Almost like it was with Al, you know? She has James in Gryffindor, and all her cousins, so I know it isn’t the same. But.”

“But you wanted her to be happy.”

Harry’s brow furrowed. “I wanted something to celebrate.”

Sol let that thought linger for a long time, filling up the space both outside and inside Harry’s head. _A celebration_. That’s what Harry had hoped for. That was what his kids needed. What Harry needed, too, maybe.

“Ginny would’ve been really excited,” he said finally. “She would’ve been unbearable, sending Owls to everybody and buying every lion-shaped doodad she could find.”

Sol was grinning. “She did that for James?”

“Oh, yeah. It was ridiculous. He had Gryffindor-themed underpants for two years.”

“And what about Albus?”

Harry’s answering smile faltered, and he shrugged. “It was a struggle, for Gin. I had to…”

“You had to what? Buy the Slytherin pants?”

“Basically. Send the Owls. She had her reasons.”

“I’m sure,” Sol said, conspicuously neutral.

“She did!” Harry pushed his glasses up, rubbed at his eyes. “There’s a lot of bad history there. We all have demons. Ginny’s demons were mostly reptiles.”

“Reptiles. Snakes.”

“Yeah.”

“Her son is a Snake.”

_“So?”_ Harry snapped back.

“I wonder what it was like for Albus,” Sol pressed, unflinching, “to be demonized by his mother, however briefly.”

“Stop it! That’s not how it was! Ginny loved Al!”

“I know, Harry,” Sol soothed. “He knew that, too, which is all that really matters. But I think you’re forgetting the most important thing.”

“And what’s that?” Harry asked, leaning away. Oozing petulance.

“You sent the Owls for Albus, Harry. You bought the green and silver doodads. You have as much reason as anyone to hate Slytherin House—more, maybe.”

“He is my son,” Harry asserted. That was all there was to it.

“Yes. And you are his safe place.”

Harry closed his eyes. Sol let him. He didn’t always.

“Send your children a few presents,” Sol suggested, though it sounded more like a command. “Send Lily a stuffed lion. Ask the boys if they’re happy, and tell them how much you miss them this year. Honesty, Harry. Honesty and affection.”

“Honesty and affection,” Harry repeated, eyes still pressed closed.

“I’m going to meet with you again on Friday, at our scheduled time.”

Harry opened his eyes, sitting upright. “Right. Good. About the week after, though.”

“Hmm? Yes?”

“I have a meeting,” Harry said, sorting his slipshod thoughts. “It’s for Hermione’s book project.”

“Ah.”

“I’m not sure of the time, yet, but I think… _I know_ I’m going to need to speak to somebody. After.”

Sol nodded. “That’s good. It’s good that you know that. You want to come in on Saturday, the 14th?”

“Yeah. Yes. Please.”

“Not a problem. If you need a session in between this Friday and next Saturday, we’ll make that work.” Sol caught his eye and held it. “You’re not alone, Harry.”

Harry knew that Sol Eisenberg wasn’t a Legilimens. He’d run a full background check on Sol before he agreed to regular therapy sessions. Still, it was strange how much the older wizard seemed to know him. To know what Harry needed to hear. It was like speaking to Dumbledore, sometimes.

“Thank you, Sol.”

“Any time, Harry. Any time. Now quit sitting around here, and go eat something.”

When Hermione and Hugo had come (bearing Thai curry) and gone (bearing assurances that Harry would _go to bed properly),_ Harry got out a quill and a stack of personalized parchment. The parchment was silly, stamped with Harry’s full name and the phrase ‘The Dad Who Gived.’ It was a long-ago Father’s Day present from Lily, and Harry rationed it carefully for years out of sentiment. This seemed like a time which called for sentiment.

 _Dear Lily,_ he wrote, _Go, go Gryffindor! Hear those Hogwarts Lions roar!_


	7. September 5th, 2019 - September 12th, 2019

**Thursday, September 5 th, 2019 – Thursday, September 12th, 2019**

Hullo Dad,

I’m not sure what you mean by asking if I’m happy at school, but I’m feeling okay. I miss home, but not too much. Thanks for the frogs.

Artie and Lily keep trying to sneak each other into their common rooms. Artie says it’s easy as anything to get into the Gryffindor commons (I could’ve told her that!) but Lily is always standing in the wrong place when she says our password. She keeps knocking on the wall and shouting. It’s so embarrassing. I think I’ll stick a dot of paint on the floor or something, just to make her stop.

I think maybe Louis is telling her the wrong passwords, too. He’s so annoying. He and Scorpius keep getting into arguments about those Mad Muggle comics.

Artie’s cat is called Conan the Barbarian, did you know? It’s a Muggle thing. Drew Grimes, who’s in sixth year, thought the name was stupid and started calling him “Barb,” and the name sort of stuck. So now Artie has a male cat named Barb, who never stops trying to put his paw in Scorpius’s milk tea.

Speaking of Scorpius, he told me to tell you that his mum wants to schedule a visit at Christmas. She thinks Scorp will feel better at her new house if I can come for a day or two, just to make things normal. I think she might invite Rose, too. Can I go? Just overnight? I don’t think she means over Christmas Day or anything.

James got into trouble in the Great Hall yesterday, but I didn’t see what happened. I’d ask him, but he’s being a right git and I don’t want to start a row. (Don’t tell me not to call him a git. You haven’t been here. You don’t know.)

Classes are pretty good. Hagrid’s going to let us see the unicorns this term.

Yours Sincerely, Al

* * *

_Harry J. Potter, Head Auror_

_Auror Department, Level Two_

_Ministry of Magic – London_

Harry,

Just got home, but I can't make it in to the office tomorrow. Hugo's got a head cold. Mione can't take any time out of the office, and Hugo already gave the lurgy to Mum. Somebody's got to stay home with him. Little bloke sounds like an erumpent when he sneezes, I swear.

I'm worn to pieces, myself, but did you want to pop in for breakfast tomorrow? You should've seen the second leg of that race, mate! Brutal! Come by, I'll tell you about it.

Hermione forgot about the washing in the middle again, so I've got to air everything out and run it over. You'd think I'd be used to pregnancy brain by now, but it still surprises me when she gets scattered like this.

Glad to hear you're back in the office, mate. Spinnet was going spare.

Tomorrow? Breakfast?

Ron

_Ronald B. Granger-Weasley, Deputy Head Auror_

_50 Sekforde Street, Farringdon_

_London_

* * *

Hi Dad! I’m doing good! Artie says hello!

We have a whole cabinet full of games in the Gryffindor tower. Did you have that? Card games, board games, even Muggle ones. I’ve been playing a lot with Artie and Molly and a little bit with Roxie, but I can’t play with Rose. Rose wins everything, and when she doesn’t win, she sulks.

Artie’s cat goes by Barb now. It’s a long story.

Thank you for the lion blanket!!! I put it on my bed, and I’m the only girl in Gryffindor who has one. It only roars when you tickle its stomach, only I must have done it once in my sleep. That was a surprise! I think maybe Tamora Donovan peed herself, a little.

I miss you a lot, and I miss home. Gryffindor tower feels like home, a little bit, but we don’t have enough pillows on the beds here and we don’t have television. Can you tell me what’s happened on _Hollyoaks?_ Everybody wants to know, and _The Daily Prophet_ doesn’t write about Muggle programs.

Thanks also for the chocolate.

Love you ♥♥♥ Lily

* * *

Dad—

Got the chocolate frogs. Thanks.

I’m fine. School’s fine. My counselor here smells of sage, or something.

Neville says we’re supposed to prune the devil’s snare this year. I can’t climb the ladders so I’m going to do something with wiggentree. Whatever. It’s fine.

I lost house points, but don’t freak out! It was stupid. Just an argument that got too loud. Neville didn’t even give me detention.

Lily’s driving me nuts in Gryffindor, but what else is new?

Tell the family I said “hey.”

—James

* * *

_Harry J. Potter, Head Auror_

_Auror Department, Level Two_

_Ministry of Magic – London_

Dear Harry,

Thanks for writing back. I hope your week has improved, now that Ron’s back at work. Although, considering we lost the Broom-Race Finals to India and South Africa, he’s probably in a wicked mood. Try two drops of shrivelfig extract in his tea after breakfast. It works every time.

It’s disappointing that James didn’t come clean with you about the argument in the Great Hall. I told him specifically to write to you. It wasn’t much of an infraction, really, but his language was pretty off-color. I asked around discreetly, and I’ve heard he might be facing some teasing for the cane and the limp. Awful, just awful! What is wrong with these little blighters, I wonder? I’ve had a word with the boys involved, and I’ll keep my eyes peeled for more problems.

Don’t thank me for that, Harry. It is my job.

Don’t apologize, either, for bringing up Hannah. She was a gift, and I like to think about her. The pain is part of loving her, now.

After the first shock of losing her settled, for a year or so after, I kept having these jolts of pain every time she was mentioned. I read somewhere an analogy to a bouncing ball inside a closed box. The box has a button on one wall, and it hurts every time the ball presses it.

In the beginning, the ball has lots of force behind it, and it’s ricocheting off the walls like a miscast jinx. It hits that button all the time. Lots of pain. Then, after a while, the ball starts to slow down, and the pain button stops going off so often. Things that triggered it before don’t always do that, anymore. It’s easier because you get a break from the ache of it. But when the pain comes, it’s always a blow. You can’t predict it, so you can’t prepare properly. I’m sure the ball never totally stops.

I don’t know if that helps, but the pain and the memories become separate things, eventually. When I think about Hannah, even about the final stage of her cancer, I usually smile.

Lakshmi and I are planning to be in London for Diwali this year. Everyone’s going to celebrate at Padma and Nikesh’s place, since Parvati can’t get much time off work. It starts on Sunday, the 27th of October. Want to stop by? Or I can come by the Ministry for lunch? Let me know. I know they’d all love to see you.

Write back when you get a minute, and let me know what you’re thinking about James. Lily seems to have settled in quickly, but I’ll do whatever you think is best. Lakshmi’s making sure he takes physical therapy seriously. She says the weather is really messing with his leg.

All our love,

Neville

_Professor Neville Longbottom_

_Herbology Department_

_Hogwarts School for Witchcraft & Wizardry – Scotland_

* * *

Harry,

Hermione mentioned you might want to meet up and get a drink or something? Seamus is knee-deep in that fraud investigation, but I’ve got time (if you don’t mind day drinking with an infant). Want to meet Emily and me at that pub near your place, the new one? Around three? Emmy has finally popped her first tooth through, so she’s fit to go out in public again. I thought the crying would never stop.

Got any tricks for getting spit-up out of un-gessoed canvas?

Cheers, Dean 

* * *

_Harry J. Potter, Head Auror_

_Auror Department_

_Level Two_

Hi Harry:

I’ve scheduled the interview with the Slytherins for five o’clock on Friday. Do you want to walk over together? Or would you rather Apparate? Molly and Arthur have Hugo overnight because I’m not sure how Ron will be feeling, or whether I’ll need to transcribe my notes. Would you like to stay over at our place after?

I’ve also Owled my interview questions to Grimmauld Place, for you to read through before we meet with them. Ron suggested it might help for you both to go in well-prepared. I’m still not clear on what Flora Bulstrode meant by ‘a conversation,’ but I doubt you and Ron will need to speak any more than you’d like. I understand Pansy Zabini is feeling quite nervous, so do try to be polite, will you? Your face can look rather scary when you frown.

Shall I order in breakfast for Saturday morning? Or perhaps Millie would be willing to bring an order, to go?

Rose tells me James has been behaving himself better. That’s good news.

Talk soon! Hermione

_Hermione J. Granger-Weasley, Prosecutor_

_Wizengamot Offices, Magical Creatures & Beings Department_

_Level Four_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The originator of the Ball-in-a-Box Analogy: @LaurenHerschel on Twitter
> 
> 50 Sekforde Street in Farringdon is actually the address of an Australian restaurant called Granger & Co. That was too funny not to use.


	8. September 13th, 2019 - Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See end notes for a slightly spoilery trigger warning.
> 
> September 13th, 2019 - Part Two is coming tomorrow!

**Friday, September 13 th, 2019**

“I just want to go on the record,” Ron announced as he pulled irritably at the cuff of his sweater, “that the date of this interview feels bloody ominous.”

“D’you see the Grim in your teacup this morning?” Harry wondered. They pulled on their jackets as Hermione checked her hair once more in the hall mirror.

Ron nodded, “Black cat crossing my path.”

“Walked under a ladder.”

“Shoes on the kitchen table.”

“Murder of crows.”

Ron stopped short. “Do people murder crows? That’s gruesome.”

“That’s what you call a flock of them,” Harry said. Hermione huffed.

“No one actually uses that term,” she griped, mouth full of bobby pins. “That’s just an internet thing.”

“You’re spoiling it again, dear.”

“That’s not true, anyway,” Harry argued, rather proudly. “I saw it on the BBC.”

“Well. Fine, but it’s all silly superstition,” Mione said. “Luck! Divination! There’s another Friday the 13th in December of this year, you know.”

“Okay,” Ron said agreeably. “I don’t want to break bread with Harry and Parkinson—at the same time, together—on that day either.”

“Worried about last suppers?” Harry said.

“Parkinson could put any bloke off his meal.”

“Honestly, Ron!” Hermione snapped.

He pressed a dry kiss to her temple and sighed. “I support you in all of your endeavors, and I wish I wasn’t doing this today. Or any day. I can feel both things at the same time.”

She leaned into him a little. “Emotional range of a swimming pool.”

“Damn right.”

“Let’s go over the plan again on the walk over, shall we?” Her hair was finished, and she had a thick stack of parchment in both hands.

Harry caught Ron’s eye. “I’m guessing we shall.”

“Flora and Millie will arrive together, one assumes.” She pushed them out the front door, eyes on her notes. Ron took her elbow to steer her out of the path of a giant pram. “Hestia might be with them. Or do you think she’s coming from the Ministry? She might need a drink, or a bathroom break. Perhaps everyone should use the toilet before we begin.”

“Logical,” Ron said, tucking her further into his side. They prepared to cross the busy road.

“Pansy will arrive separately, as she said she’s Flooing in directly from her office.”

“Point of order—” Harry said as they crested the hill. “What’s to keep Parkinson from printing anything we say in her magazine?”

“It is not _her_ magazine,” Hermione said, flipping through her papers. “She’s a reporter, that’s all. And we’ll be signing a non-disclosure, of course.” She frowned. “Well. The rest of you will. Disclosure is rather the point, for me.”

A brisk breeze whipped through the streets, ruffling leaves and parchment and hair. Harry tucked his nose into his red scarf. 

"Are you sure you don't want to stay over with us tonight?" Hermione asked Harry. "I'd worry less about you if you had some support."

"Teddy'll be home, and I think I'm going to need time by myself to think."

_"Brood,_ he means," Ron said sagely. "Monologue to himself, like a Shakespearean hero."

Harry shrugged. "When the robes fit..."

"The offer's open, Harry," Mione said. He dropped an arm around her shoulders, and squeezed.

“I still don’t understand why we have to do this in a public place,” Ron said as they crossed another side street. “Feels fishy.”

“And what do you imagine the Slytherin plot is this time, Ron? World domination by way of caramel macchiato?”

“I don’t know, do I?” He scoffed. “I’m not the dominating kind!” Harry choked on a laugh as Hermione shook her head, distracted again with her interview questions. Ron went pink and sputtery. “Shut it, Harry”

“I wish you two would take this a bit more seriously,” Hermione said. Her parchment stack looked rumpled from so much handling.

“Laugh or cry, love,” Ron vowed. “Pick your potion.”

The Honest Herbologist was a Wizarding café located outside Diagon Alley, in Clerkenwell. It was run by a pair of elderly sisters who always seemed to be arguing. Hermione and Ron loved to go for an early lunch, but Harry’d never been in for dinner before. The dining room was busier than he’d expected.

“Bit crowded, don’t you think?” he muttered. He pushed his glasses back up his nose.

“We’ve reserved the private dining at the back,” Hermione told him, letting her round belly lead the way.

The ‘private dining’ turned out to be somebody’s sitting room—or so it appeared to Harry. Instead of wooden chairs, tiled floors, and bud vases, the place featured a pair of very long, very squishy sofas. They faced one another on either side of a skinny table, and Harry had to relocate several cushions before he could sit down.

In typical Wizarding style, the room was a riot of pattern and warm color. The walls were decorated with several animated paintings, but none with human occupants. Small mercies.

Ron left to order their food and drink at the counter, while Hermione sorted her notes into incomprehensible piles. Harry took his jacket off and chewed on the inside of his cheek. He tapped his chest with his fingers. He blinked too much.

First of the Slytherins to arrive were Millicent Bulstrode—broad, busty, black hair in a messy, pageboy haircut—and Flora. Harry often thought they should’ve looked mismatched, with Flora’s willowy limbs and nervous expression, but the effect was more complementary than contradictory. Millie had a large arm wrapped around Flora’s slim waist.

“Are we eating here, Potter?” she asked.

“Ron’s ordering sandwiches.”

Hermione stood to offer Millie and Flora her hand. They shook it, looking bemused, which was fair enough. They’d been on dinner party terms for years.

“Thank you, again, for doing this,” Mione said.

Flora’s shoulders were high and tight. “Of course.”

Hestia Pérez, who worked in accounts for the Ministry, trailed in shortly after. Flora looked relieved to see her sister. Millie ordered at the counter for them both.

The Floo _whooshed_ green, and Harry forced himself to look.

Pansy Parkinson Zabini was much the same as she’d been at school, without much softening from age and motherhood. She was still snub-nosed, all cheekbones and razor jaw. Her long hair was fashionably cut, sleek and shiny, and lightened to chocolate brown. Her clothing was (apparently) the envy of every witch in Britain. Harry didn’t know anything about fashion, but her black dress fit perfectly and looked very crisp, even at the end of the day.

“Hello Pansy,” Hermione said, again with the hand-shaking. “Thank you for coming.”

Parkinson licked red lips. “Do I have time for an espresso?”

“Oh, yes! Why don’t we all get the orders settled, and maybe use the toilet?” When Parkinson raised an eyebrow at her, Hermione flushed. “Well. Just in case.”

Harry expected the Snake to say something withering, but she merely sighed.

Once everyone had what they needed to fortify themselves (Ron had eaten two sandwiches and a bag of crisps while waiting for everyone else’s food to arrive), Hermione ushered the group back to the table. Millie and Flora took seats together, across from Hermione and Ron. Hestia sat next to her sister, on the far end. That put the last interviewee right across from Harry.

“Parkinson,” Harry nodded, then flushed. “Or, er, should I call you Mrs. Zabini?”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m still proud to be a Parkinson, Potter, so don’t trouble yourself. You’re as uncouth as ever, I see.”

Harry couldn’t help bristling, but he managed a tight smile. “Cheers.”

“Let’s begin, shall we?” Hermione cut in. “I thought it might be a good idea to get any early questions out of the way. Things you might worry about, in regards to the book? Or things you need clarified?”

“Hermione,” Ron murmured. “The non-disclosure.”

“Oh! Yes. As we discussed—everyone present, aside from myself, will sign a non-disclosure agreement.”

“We can’t talk about this?” Millie frowned. “To anyone?”

“You can discuss our meeting today, and the book, and your own history, of course. But you won’t want to discuss what you learn from other participants.”

“Why won’t I want to?” Parkinson asked, wary.

“Are you familiar with the Furnunculus Jinx?”

Parkinson’s eyes widened. “Pimples?”

“Of a sort,” Hermione said, sliding the parchment in front of Ron.

Millie looked thoughtful. “That what happened to Marietta Edgecombe? In fifth year? I heard that was your fault.”

Hestia looked worried. “That word didn’t disappear for _ages.”_

Hermione sniffed primly. “As I’m sure no one here intends to spill one another’s secrets, we needn’t worry about that.”

Harry took the contract from Ron, and skimmed the terms. He wasn’t worried. Hermione Granger-Weasley was a terrifyingly wonderful witch to have as your ally.

All four Slytherins read through the contract thoroughly, which Harry respected, even if it did mean he needed to refresh his coffee while he waited. Eventually, the document was signed, sealed, and stored at the bottom of Hermione’s parchment pile.

“All right. Any questions as we begin?”

Hestia shook her head. Ron tapped his fingers on the table. Parkinson sipped her espresso silently. Millie crossed both arms over her chest, and Flora chewed on her lower lip.

“In that case,” Hermione said, a bit awkwardly, “I thought we could begin with fifth year at Hogwarts.”

Parkinson looked up. “Fifth year? Not sixth?”

“I have questions about fifth year,” Hermione nodded, then cleared her throat with a _hiccup_. “As you know, this is my first round of interviews for the book, and I’m not sure the prosecutorial approach is a good idea, here.”

“Prosecutorial?” Flora said.

“The first question, the first important question, is also one that might upset you all.”

“I see,” Parkinson said, setting her tiny cup back on its saucer. “If you were an interview for _Witch Weekly,_ I’d butter you up first. Flatter you. Make you feel comfortable, before I went in for the kill.”

“I don’t want to be buttered,” Millie complained. Parkinson cracked a sharp smile. “Nor _killed_. I want to speak plainly. Like equals.”

“Yes, please,” Hestia agreed, and Flora was nodding.

“Very well.” Hermione said briskly, and Harry saw Ron squeeze her knee under the table. “Tom Riddle, the man known as Voldemort, returned to corporeal form at the end of our fourth year at Hogwarts. Much of the public refused to accept that fact. Can you tell me, each of you, when you became aware that he’d actually returned?”

Flora’s eyes were wider than Harry’d ever seen them. She kept shooting glances at her sister, and her wife.

Hestia cleared her throat a little too loud, drawing Harry’s eye. Hestia was Flora’s identical twin, but there was no chance of confusing them—Flora Bulstrode wore her long, chestnut hair naturally, while Hestia had dyed it a soft shade of pink.

“Flora and I knew as soon as the Summer began. Amycus and Alecto told us. We weren't allowed to tell anyone else.”

“Of course,” Hermione said.

“My parents weren’t Death Eaters.” Millie wore a deep frown. “None of the family. I didn’t know for certain, one way or another, ‘til the Summer after fifth year.”

“I know this will come as a shock,” Parkinson drawled, looking straight at Harry, “but my family weren’t in the Dark Lord’s circle, either. I found out sooner, at the start of fifth year. From Draco.”

Harry held her gaze, and his notorious temper, until the atmosphere in the room seemed to thicken with malice and magic. Parkinson didn’t look away.

It was Ron who broke the tension with an awkward laugh. “Sure, Parkinson, sure. You and Malfoy were thick as thieves back then, yeah?”

“He’s my closest friend,” she agreed, snapping her connection to Harry with a shrug. “We’ve known one another since we were infants.”

Hermione regained command of the room: “And you Flora, Hestia? Millie? When did you meet?”

“We’ve known Pansy since we were children,” Flora said, tipping her head toward her sister. “We met Millie at school.”

Millicent nodded. “My mum’s Muggleborn.”

Hermione’s eyebrows went up. “Really?”

“Not every Snake is Pureblood,” Millie said, sounding defensive. “My da has Slytherin in the veins, going back to the days of Merlin hisself.”

“Millie’s father didn’t mix much with the old crowd, after the wedding,” Pansy remarked. “I’m sure you can imagine why.”

Millie sent an exasperated look Pansy’s way, but Harry had been sniffing out liars for a long time. He could read the hidden fondness in her face.

Parkinson smirked. “What I want to know is: when did Harry Potter, renowned skeptic of Slytherins, befriend Millicent bloody Bulstrode, and the Carrow get?”

Millie rumbled a warning, “Pansy…”

“Curious minds want to know!” she insisted, unrepentant.

“This isn’t an interview of Harry,” Mione said. She sat up straighter on the sofa. “That’s not what we agreed to do.”

“And I’m under a very nasty contract,” Parkinson argued. “Bravo for that, Hermione, very sly. Since I can’t ever discuss anything Potter tells me with anyone—even my _husband_ —than I’d like a few answers, myself.”

“I met Millie and Flora through Dean Thomas,” Harry said, cutting off Hermione’s building argument. “Our kids go to school together. I’m sure you know that.”

“Thomas and Finnegan only adopted their daughter a year ago. How did Dean Thomas befriend _you?”_ Parkinson asked Millie.

Millie shifted in her seat. “Through the G.R.I.M. Alliance.”

Parkinson’s eyes narrowed. Harry could almost _see_ her brain turning between her ears.

The G.R.I.M. Alliance—a network of support for magical people in gender, romantic, and/or intimate minorities—had been founded in the early 2000s. The name could use some work, Harry thought, but wizards did love an acronym.

“Did you know, Potter,” Parkinson said slowly. “Millie and Flora have always been so guarded about their friendship with you. I thought they were trying to spare my feelings. Not very Slytherin, but there’s a first time for everything. Now, though, I wonder—”

“Oh, shove off, Parkinson!” Ron barked. “Like any of this is your damn business?”

“Gossip is my business. Literally.”

“Hermione?” Harry murmured, catching her slightly-panicked eye.

“I think—” She cleared her throat. “The jinx is good. It will hold. It’s up to you, Harry.”

_‘It’s up to you_. _’_ That didn’t feel… exactly right.

Years ago, when they finally put a label on Harry’s sexuality, he and Ginny talked about what it meant for their marriage. They were public figures. There was James, and the promise of Al, and the Wizarding press breathing down both their necks. They sat and imagined the headlines together:

_THE BOY WHO LIVED COMES OUT IN SEXUALITY SHOCKER!_

_ASEXUAL SAVIOR IN SHAM MARRIAGE_

_HARRY & GINNY POTTER: CHASTE BY CHOICE?_

Ginny was sure that people wouldn’t understand, would question their commitment to each other. She didn’t want to look like a martyr, or a gold digger, or a Chosen One fanatic. She didn’t want to answer invasive questions about their bedroom. _Was their relationship platonic? Did they use magic to conceive? Was Harry a virgin?_

No, no, and hell no.

_“Whose business is it but ours?”_ she wanted to know. _“Our sex life is only for us!”_

And that was true, and that was fair, and sometimes it felt cowardly as hell.

“I met Millie and Flora through Dean,” Harry said, making the decision at the same time as he began to speak. “Dean took me to my first G.R.I.M. Alliance meetings.”

Parkinson’s face, usually sneering or smirking, went utterly blank. “You aren’t straight,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

“I’m gray asexual, and biromantic,” Harry confirmed. His coffee mug trembled on the table, untouched, and Harry forced a firmer grip on his magic. Millie’s lips pursed. “I appreciate Millie and Flora keeping that private for me, for my family. But I’m not ashamed.”

“There is no reason you should be,” Parkinson said, sounding sincere. Her face was still strangely unmoved. “Which makes me wonder why you need to be under an NDA to speak about your sexuality at all.”

Harry clenched his hand around his wand in his lap. “You’re not an idiot, Parkinson. You know why.”

“Harry’s got a right to privacy,” Ron argued.

“Less so than the average wizard,” Parkinson replied, pinning Ron with her stare. “He’s in the public eye. His wife was a professional athlete, and then a coach. All those endorsement deals! Head Auror, and heir to the Sleekeazy fortune. There are trade-offs for the kind of money and power the Potter family’s amassed.”

Ron’s expression went dangerously cynical. “Trade-offs? Is that we’re calling it?”

Flora tried to intervene. “Pansy didn’t mean—”

“Yes, trade-offs, Weasel,” Parkinson said. “That’s how this works! You get to sail into the Auror service without even a N.E.W.T. You are world-famous, and married to the most influential witch in the British Isles.”

Parkinson drew a breath, and started to count off on her polished fingers. “Popularity. Money. Respect. Power. In exchange, the Wizarding World gets to _know you_ , in ways they don’t even know their neighbors.”

“We are certainly aware of that!” Hermione retorted. “We’ve been living it since before we came of age.”

“Then why did _Harry Potter_ —Head Auror, Chosen One, figurehead of British Wizarding virtue—stay in the bloody closet?” Parkinson’s cool expression was long gone, replaced with flushed cheeks and fierce eyes.

“It’s his right, Pansy,” Millie said, leaning away toward her wife.

“Rights! I see. Circe forbid we infringe on Harry Potter’s rights!”

Harry was up, out of his chair, before he even realized he was moving. The back door had a sign on it warning of Caterwauling Charms, but Harry disabled them with barely a thought. He strode out into the alleyway behind the café, sucking in irregular air like he’d forgotten how breathing worked.

Ginny would’ve hexed Parkinson into oblivion. Harry wished he’d been able to see it.

Harry’s magic pulsed and jangled inside him, spilling over with a smell like hot iron. He was a grown man, and an Auror. It was mortifying to lose control like this. He hadn’t lost his grip on his magic since—

Since.

He was leaning back against the scratchy brick wall of the café, counting his breaths as the shaking in his hands slowed, when the rear door opened again. Millicent walked out, glanced at Harry with a wrinkled nose, and found her own patch of wall to prop up.

Millie pulled a pack of oddly-packaged cigarettes from her coat pocket. She always offered one to Harry, and Harry always declined. He couldn’t figure out if she was being polite or the opposite.

“Hermione thought to call for the Ginger Calvary,” Millie remarked, and used her wand to light the tip of the cigarette. “I interfered.”

“I’m not sure why I’m here,” Harry said, breathing hard.

Millie blew out a very impressive series of smoke rings. “You’re here for the truth, I’d imagine. So am I.”

“I _hate_ her,” Harry spat, baffled. “I don’t do that. Anymore.”

Millie’s expression made it clear her opinion on Harry’s intelligence. “Did you imagine you’d been cagey about that? Yous aren’t subtle, Gryffindors.”

His eyebrows twitched. “You once sent Lily home with every freckle on her face Charmed Slytherin green. You’re not qualified to give lectures on _subtlety_.”

She smoked. Harry shivered.

“I figure,” Millie mused, “you showed up here today to hear Pansy apologize.”

“She’s done that already.”

“Yeah, but like… she probably didn’t mean it.”

“And she’ll mean it now?” Harry questioned.

“Might do.”

Harry thought about that as Millie’s cigarette filled the alley with the smell of clove. There didn’t seem to be any rush. Harry’s heart beat in a normal rhythm again, and his magic retreated. He licked his lips.

“I think I showed up to prove to myself that I could.”

Millie’s mouth twisted. “Count on a Lion to fall on every sword.”

“You think Parkinson will try to out me to the press?”

Millie dropped her cig, Vanishing the butt with a twitch of her wand. “Pansy won’t snitch, and she don’t out people. Never.”

“She’s angry,” Harry challenged.

“Nah, that’s just her face.” Harry snorted, and Millie’s lips twitched into a tiny, dimpled smile. “She don’t like hypocrites, Potter. She don’t like secrets. I think she got enough of both when we were young.”

People probably described Harry that way, too, which was a deeply unpleasant realization. “I must not tell lies,” he mumbled. His right hand flexed. Millie grunted in agreement.

“You were there, before the final battle,” he told her. “I remember you.”

“I’m not telling that story more’n once, Golden Boy.” The smile slid away, until Millie was shrewd and stoic again. “Come inside. Loathe Pansy properly. It'll make you feel better.”

Harry thought there were flaws in that logic, but he couldn’t nail them down. Instead, he grumbled as they made their way back to the table, “Only Slytherins would invent proper methods for loathing people.”

“Anything worth doing,” Millie shot back, leaving Harry to fill in the blanks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for discussion of queer identities, and debate over whether to come out publicly.


	9. September 13th, 2019 - Part Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a chapter about several characters discussing their experiences at war, and in its immediate aftermath. Read when you are ready. Stay safe and healthy, friends.
> 
> We're deviating from Pottermore/Cursed Child canon here. I'm as happy as I'm going to be with this--it's difficult not to pad it out with information Harry shouldn't have yet. If you get a second, reread the chapter "The Battle of Hogwarts" from Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows, to see events from Harry's point-of-view.
> 
> If you have a moment, drop a me comment. I'd love to hear from you!

**Friday, September 13 th, 2019**

Harry wished, for Hermione’s sake, that it had calmed down after that. Harry and Millie rejoined the group, who apparently kept talking while they took their smoke-and-shake break. Parkinson flicked her eyes Millicent's way, looking uncharacteristically abashed. Hermione gave Harry a quick pat to the shoulder before diving back in with her quill.

Ron and Parkinson were deep in the middle of an argument. Harry could feel the tingle of Hermione’s strong Silencing spell, a bubble of magic wrapped around the room. Hestia and Flora held hands, almost like children, and Millie refilled both their cups with a quiet Aguamenti. Mione’s parchment spilled over with neat little notes.

_At least she’s getting something out of this_ , Harry thought.

Whatever Flora meant by ‘a conversation,’ this felt more like trench warfare to Harry.

“It wasn’t straightforward!” Parkinson fumed. “There was evil on both sides.”

“Evil? Voldemort’s followers were killing people!” Ron sputtered.

She rose to the challenge. “The Order of the Phoenix killed people, too!”

“In self-defense! They never hurt anyone more than they had to!”

“Oh, of course. Because Graham was an _enemy_ , I suppose?” Parkinson demanded. “His injuries are inconsequential?”

“Who’s Graham?” Ron said, taken aback. Harry nearly asked the question in stereo, but bit his tongue just in time.

Parkinson’s nostrils flared. “Graham Montague. The 16-year-old boy your brothers trapped in the Vanishing Cabinet, which they failed to report to anyone! He apparated for the first time to escape, Splinched part of his _spine_. He’ll never walk again. But I suppose that makes no difference; he was only a Slytherin.”

Harry’s chest went hollow. _Montague_. Fred and George laughed about trapping him in that Cabinet. Harry and Ron talked Hermione out of telling Madam Pomfrey the truth about his injuries. Had Harry ever known his first name?

Had he never thought to worry whether Montague recovered, in the end?

“He was terrorizing people!” Ron sounded a bit uncertain.

“He was taking _house points_.” Parkinson’s voice dripped sarcastic fury. “Don’t try to tell me those twins didn’t deserve it! They left him there to _die_.”

“Pansy,” Millicent said calmly.

_“What?”_

“Graham’s all right. We’re all doing all right.” When Parkinson opened her mouth again, the larger woman grasped her fluttering fingers. “Breathe, Pans.”

She did, shallowly. Her tan face flushed with vivid color. Her lips quivered.

“I know what you all think of me. Of what I’ve done.”

Harry’s side of the table went very still. Hermione’s quill hovered in midair.

Parkinson’s hair puffed up on the sides where she’d pushed frustrated fingers into it. She sniffed delicately, and murmured a quiet incantation which smoothed the strands back into place. Perfect. Pristine. Harry didn’t know that spell, and it looked from her surprised eyebrows that Hermione didn’t either.

Parkinson’s brown gaze was stone-cold and just as hard. “I’ve heard it all by now—Every variation on ‘how could you?’ and ‘what were you thinking?’ and ‘you’re a _monster.’”_ She said all this in a smooth, unaffected tone, but those dark eyes betrayed her. “I regret it. I was an idiot child, and I regret it, and I’ll never be able to atone. And yet.” She thinned her lips. “I am sorry, Harry Potter.”

“You’ve apologized to me,” Harry croaked. “Years ago. It’s forgiven.”

“It isn’t,” she argued sharply. “It isn’t, and I suspect it never will be.”

“It would... Well,” Hermione spoke up carefully. “It would be good to know your reasons. To have an explanation. For the book.”

“My reasons?” Parkinson scoffed, shaking loose some of her stiff posture. “I didn’t want to _die,_ Hermione. I didn’t want my friends to die. I didn’t want the Dark Lord to murder us all to get to Harry bloody Potter, who had never been anything but _vile_ to me and my friends in the seven years I’d known him.”

“You were vile right back,” Ron said coldly.

“Yes,” she agreed, and the sides of her mouth quirked up just a little. “So, you see: the reason is simple. I didn’t owe Potter my loyalty. But I know better now.”

“It just—it doesn’t make sense.” Ron shook his head. “You knew then that Voldemort was depraved. You knew he was a murderer, and a despot. Why try to appease him at all?”

Parkinson regarded him with careful composure. Then she took a deep breath through her small nose. “If it were me? Or Greg Goyle? Or _Draco Malfoy_ , the Marked Boy himself? If the Dark Lord had asked for Draco’s life in exchange for the lives of every man, woman, and child at Hogwarts that day... would you have made that trade?”

She gave him time to reply, but there was no chance of that. Ron looked ill. His freckles were stark against the translucence of his skin. Harry pictured Fred, and Colin, and Lavender, Tonks and Remus, and on and on. A long parade of lives traded for Harry’s.

_Steady, Harry,_ he thought, and it sounded like Sol in his head. _Not for you._ _For the hope of finally ending a war._

“Who knows?” Parkinson went on, calmly. “Maybe not. Maybe your high ideals would have won out. But _someone_ would have tried to take him up on it. Harry Potter meant nothing to me, then. I couldn’t know how much he would mean to us all.”

“She may’ve been the one brave enough, or crazy enough, to say it aloud,” Millicent put in, abashed. “But she weren’t the only one thinking it.” Her wife, Flora, nodded along with a grim expression.

“And not everyone who wondered was from Slytherin house,” said Hestia, in her cut-crystal accent. “Some of the Eagles and Badgers had doubts about Potter’s importance, too. Not that anyone would admit to it later. We were all meant to take it on faith that Harry Potter—a thoroughly average student with some Quidditch talent—was going to save us all from the Death Eaters. It seemed impossible.”

“But he did,” Ron pointed out loyally.

“He did,” Hestia said, bowing her head. “And we are very thankful. And very sorry.”

The silence sat heavily around the table for a long minute or two. Hermione seemed lost inside her own mind, perhaps reviewing and discarding questions she’d meant to ask. Finally, she came back to herself and broke the stalemate.

“Pansy, you mentioned that Flora was the one who turned Septima Vector over to the Order of the Phoenix.” Flora turned a bit pink, but nodded. “Can you tell me about that?”

“Hestia and I are—are Carrows.” When Hermione smiled, Flora swallowed and went on: “We haven’t used that name since the war. Hestia goes by Pérez, which was our mother’s maiden name. Our father is the elder brother of Amycus and Alecto, although we didn’t know them well before they came to teach at Hogwarts.”

“Our father thought our aunt and uncle were dangerous,” Hestia added. “He didn’t like us around them much.”

Flora nodded. “When the Death Eaters reconvened, my father declared his neutrality. He wanted to take the family out of the country, but my aunt and uncle accused him of cowardice. They called him a blood traitor. He was afraid to push things any further, so we stayed.”

“But your father never took the Dark Mark?” Hermione wondered.

“Never,” Flora declared. “And he would have died rather than watch us take it either. But Amycus still believed we could be useful to He Must Not Be Named. He and Alecto used to pull us out of classes, for little ‘brainstorming sessions.’ They wanted us to spy on our classmates, and report back on unrest.”

“I thought all Slytherins were doing that?” Harry said.

“Yes and no,” Flora said. “We were all supposed to be doing it, but some of us, like Gregory and Vincent, just weren’t any good at subterfuge. There were people like Pansy, from powerful families that He Who Must Not Be Named was still courting. And some... well, the rest of us just pretended. We did just enough to satisfy my aunt and uncle, without exposing anyone to the Death Eaters’ attention.”

“You were resisting Voldemort’s regime,” Hermione said, in a steady voice.

“You’re giving us too much credit,” Flora flushed. “We didn’t want to be torturers, or murderers, or spies, for Circe’s sake! We wanted to stay alive. We wanted to get out with our skins and our souls intact.”

“It was what Draco told us to do,” Hestia said. Her lip shook a little.

Hermione darted a quick glance at Harry, and then at Ron’s red face. “So, Professor Vector...?”

“Professor Vector came to me that night,” Flora said. “The staff assumed that Hestia and I were Death Eater sympathizers. Amycus, in particular, favored us. Professor Vector wanted to locate our aunt and uncle—Professor Snape had disappeared, Amycus and Alecto were missing. Vector was convinced they were mounting an internal force.”

“Death Eaters already inside the castle,” Ron said, eyes narrowed.

Flora sipped her water, and stared into an empty corner. “Hestia’s a genius in Arithmancy—Vector’s best N.E.W.T. student." Hestia sent Hermione an embarrassed glance. "They got along. I don’t think she was much interested in me. We were supposed to help her find Amycus and Alecto, and fight for He Who Must Not Be Named, at their side.”

“What did you do?” Harry wondered, caught up in Flora’s story.

“I told her I knew where Hestia was hiding. I led her toward the Transfiguration corridor. I couldn’t be sure we’d find anyone who could help, but I knew Hestia was nowhere nearby. That no one I knew would be there, and so they’d be safe when things went pear-shaped.”

Millie was a bit teary, watching her wife. She laced their fingers together, and Flora came back to herself enough to squeeze. “Millie and Hestia were in a totally different part of the castle,” Flora went on. “Professor Vector sent a message to someone outside with her Patronus; that’s when I realized how large the Death Eater forces were. I pretended to search for Hestia, and Vector got agitated. She—she hexed me, just for spite.” She curled her empty hand into a tight fist on the table, and her lips went white and thin. “That was when Professor McGonagall arrived. Vector immediately went after her. She forgot about me. I—I thought about running. I _wanted_ to run.”

“But you didn’t,” Millicent told her, with obvious pride.

Flora shook her head slowly. “When Vector’s back was turned, I hit her with a full Body-Bind. She shook it off, but not before McGonagall got under her guard. She Stunned her.”

It was an incredible story. Harry couldn’t imagine how Hermione managed to hold herself so professionally in the face of it. But then, Hermione had always been impressive. His heart swelled with love and admiration as he watched her scribble dutiful notes.

“And this was why you were never charged with any crime?” she asked Flora.

“I was pardoned as a defector.”

“Only two grown Slytherins at the Battle got pardoned,” Millie added. “Flora, and Professor Slughorn.”

“I barely made it through the corridor, before they sealed up the path to Hogsmeade. I thought Augusta Longbottom might send me back to the fight.”

“Some of our classmates did stay to fight, with the Death Eaters,” Hestia said, pained. “Greg, Vincent. Theo.”

“Where were the rest of you? Still in the Hog's Head?” Hermione asked.

“Hestia and Millie were a bit busy,” Parkinson sneered, “hiding all those underage students that McGonagall didn’t want on the battlefield.”

“You were there, too, Pansy,” Millie muttered.

“Someone had to be!” she snapped back. The elegant woman closed her eyes and drew a long breath. “McGonagall told them not to fight. She thought we could just send them home. The Hog’s Head was a stupid idea—where were we meant to go, once we reached Hogsmeade? They couldn’t Apparate! Some of the seventh-years had barely qualified, but we knew we couldn't move so many out of a war zone. Not without Splinching.” She made a noise of disgust. “We couldn't get back in, to go for help. The school’s wards were in some sort of tailspin, doing their level best to protect that bloody _castle_ above all else.”

Harry swallowed down the memory of screaming, and Fiendfyre. “Where did you go?”

“Basements,” Millicent answered somberly. “Rosmerta's place had store rooms, a mess of them, below-ground. Figured the Death Eaters wouldn’t think to look there for survivors.”

“We had no idea what was going on,” Hestia said. “We were cut off from news. We couldn’t even hear the battle from that far below, and the castle's defensive magic interfered with our own.”

“It was terrible,” Flora continued, in an eerily similar voice. “The little ones were so frightened. The Gryffindors and Ravenclaws knew they had family up there, fighting. The Slytherins, too, and most on the wrong side. If it weren’t for the little Hufflepuffs...” She smiled bleakly. “Well, they kept us all sane, didn’t they? They kept their heads. It held the lot of us together, down there.”

Pansy wheezed a bitter laugh. “Three days. They forgot us for three days.”

“They were searching, Pans,” Millie said, shaking her head.

Parkinson glowered at her. “The town was in pieces, all the lanes and alleys blocked with rubble. We thought about getting out, but Hogsmeade was in lockdown. Death Eaters and Aurors trolling the streets, all quick with a curse! We barricaded ourselves in.”

Flora said, "Rosmerta's House-elves were gone. None of the equipment will work without their magic, so we could only eat what we didn’t need to cook. The store rooms wouldn’t stay cool, either, without the Elves about; all that meat and dairy turned rancid in a day. The kitchen was swarming with flies.”

“People started getting ill. Bad food, or not enough water, or the stress—who knows?” Millicent shifted an arm around the back of Flora’s chair, and her wife leaned back into it. “We only had nineteen upperclassmen with us. Most of the Ravenclaws and all of Gryffindor abandoned us, soon as McGonagall’s back was turned, to go back to the fighting. Weren’t many Hufflepuffs left at Hogwarts by then, ‘cept those newly-sorted. 208 little kids under the care of 15 Slytherins, three Ravenclaws, and Zacharias Smith.”

“Zacharias?” Hermione yelped, and then blushed. “Only... I thought he left?”

Millie shook her head, black bob swinging. “Has a little brother, don’t he?” Harry didn’t know, and it looked from Hermione’s expression that she wasn’t aware either. “First year. Wouldn’t be parted from him. Smith’s the one who realized the Hog’s Head weren’t going to work,” she frowned. "He tried to stop them evacuating.”

“Morons,” Pansy scoffed. “Honestly. Hogsmeade was overrun with the Dark Lord’s followers. Where did McGonagall think all those Death Eaters were coming from?”

“Draco realized he had to seal up the Vanishing Cabinet,” Hestia said. “So we lost him, too.”

“He helped us move everyone to the Hogsmeade corridor, and then he hung back, to make sure no one attempted to use the Cabinet,” Pansy went on. Her eyes were unfocused and her expression bleak. “I still can’t believe the thing hadn’t been destroyed already. I suppose the Dark Lord forbid it."

“None of us knew Draco weren't on the side of No-Nose, 'fore that," Millie said. "Not even Pansy."

“Greg and Vincent... they were committed to the Death Eater cause, by then. They chased after Draco. Who knows what he told them? _Merlin,_ he was such a reckless idiot.”

“...Why?” Hermione asked.

Pansy met her gaze steadily. Her cheeks were pale and her eyes shone too brightly. “The Dark Lord would know, Hermione. He always knew.”

All the blood drained from Harry’s head. He was dizzy.

“Why would Draco do it?” Hermione asked.

“He was desperate!” Pansy snarled, leaning toward her across the table. Her painted nails slashed through the air as she spoke. “You’ve no idea what kind of Hell could have come through that Cabinet. The _horrors_ lurking on the other side. The Vampires, recruited by the Dark Lord and biding their time until he signaled them. Banshees and erklings.”

“Bloody hell,” Ron whispered.

“It’d have been a blood bath,” Millie nodded. “Death Eaters could’ve walked through the front doors, stepped right over the carnage. If the Dark Lord weren’t determined to kill Potter hisself, it would’ve been over before it ever began.”

Ron gulped. “And Malfoy was going to—to—”

Parkinson’s mouth twisted. “Damage the cabinet beyond repair, and suffer the consequences.”

“But we’d gotten there first,” Harry murmured, catching Ron’s eye.

No one spoke for a long, charged moment. Then Pansy went on, “I know you think he should've warned them. McGonagall, Kingsley... warned _you_. But who would believe him? Who was going to take a Death Eater at his word?”

“Call us cowards, if you want,” Flora said in a wavering voice. “Perhaps we are. Perhaps we should have been brave enough to sacrifice ourselves, and our friends, and our families. He Who Must Not Be Named would’ve punished Slytherins with a good deal more cruelty than the rest of you, but perhaps... perhaps we deserved it.”

“No one deserved it,” Hermione said.

“I’ve never been sure,” Flora admitted, shaking her head. “Aunt Alecto and Uncle Amycus protected us. They loved us. They were _wicked_ , but they were our family, and I betrayed them. Not soon enough.” Millie pressed her forehead to Flora’s temple. Hestia swiped at tears spilling over onto red cheeks.

“You’ve paid your debts,” Harry said. He was surprised by the steadiness of his voice. “If you owed the world anything, you’ve more than paid.”

“Have we, Potter?” Pansy wondered, with a sardonic lift of one eyebrow. “Have I?”

“Yes. Yes, of course.”

“Well, the letters on my wrist say otherwise,” she sighed. She pushed back the sleeve of her black dress. The tattoo was stark against the buttery skin of her left arm.

 _DARC_.

“The irony isn’t lost on me, you know. The DARC mark.”

Millicent was rubbing a thumb against her own tattoo. “Draco’s the only bloke outside Azkaban who was branded by that nutter. But the Ministry marked us, just the same.” Flora pulled Millie’s hand up, pressing her lips against the black letters.

There wasn’t much left to say. Hermione’s quill had gone still, and Ron had a tight grip on her hip, scarred arm circling her waist. Harry had a million questions he wanted to ask, a million assurances he wanted to give, but everything felt inadequate.

“Thank you,” Hermione finally said, solemnly. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you doing this. All of you. It must be—” She choked a little, and turned to Ron.

“It’s tough to talk about. For us,” her husband continued, meeting Millie’s firm eye. “I reckon it’s just as tough for you. So. Thank you.”

Millie’s dimple appeared in one cheek, and she squeezed her wife’s fingers. “Yous are welcome to ask again. If you need.”

“Yes. Millie’s right, please ask,” Flora offered. She sounded steadier now, and her eyes were strong. “A second-year Ravenclaw died in that basement. Falling debris. She was only twelve.”

Hestia sniffled a little, but set her jaw firmly. “Gemma Stevens. Half-blood. She deserves to be remembered.”

“She will be,” Hermione assured them. “I promise.”

The four Snakes packed up their things, and shook hands again with Hermione. The main dining room was empty, a lone witch wiping up tables and Vanishing crumbs. Harry pulled her aside to thank her for staying open late. “‘S nothing, Mr. Potter,” she said. “Thank you kindly.” She tucked the extra Galleons away in her spotted apron.

Hestia stepped outside into the dark to Disapparate, while Millie and Flora took the Floo back to Diagon Alley. Hermione and Ron followed them to the fireplace; Ron held Mione’s arm as she climbed into the hearth. Pansy Zabini sat down to wait for Blaise near the front door.

Harry pushed trembling hands into his pockets. One thought wouldn’t stop circling.

“Parkinson?” Harry said quietly, once Ron had vanished with a wave and a flash of green smoke. She stiffened, but glanced over at him.

“Yes?”

“How did Malfoy plan to destroy the Vanishing Cabinet?”

“…I’m sure I don’t know.”

Harry couldn’t help smiling. “I’m sure you do.”

She sighed, and her shoulders slumped. She slowly melted into her seat, head in both hands; it was so out of character that Harry nearly reached out a hand to steady her.

“He doesn’t talk about it. Not to anyone.” She pressed both hands against her forehead, shaking her head. “But I know Draco Malfoy. He never would have used _that spell_ with anyone else in the room. He’d have tried to force Greg and Vincent out.”

Harry swallowed. “Crabbe cast the Fiendfyre.”

“He wanted to kill you,” she admitted, without sympathy. She wrapped both arms around her stomach. “A lot of people did, it seems.”

“You?” She leveled him with an unimpressed look. “Malfoy?”

Parkinson cracked a helpless laugh. “There wasn’t a power on this Earth strong enough to convince Draco to kill _you,”_ she said, hugging herself even tighter. “Not his father. Not the Dark Lord himself.”

Harry stared at her, arrested. His lungs were burning, but he couldn’t draw in any air. He was aware, vaguely, that the witch at the counter was listening in with undisguised curiosity. He cast a vicious Muffliato and said, “Malfoy hated me.”

“You’re a _moron_ , Harry Potter,” she said tightly. She stared over his shoulder at the disgruntled eavesdropper for a long moment before nodding once to herself, as if her mind was made up. Her mouth barely moved as she said, “Read the transcripts.”

Harry blinked. “What? The court transcripts? From Malfoy’s trial?”

“Read them,” Parkinson nodded again.

“I—I can’t. He was tried as a minor. They’re sealed.”

“What kind of an Auror are you?” she grumbled, dropping her head back into her hands. “Read the transcripts, Boy Who Lived. It’s about bloody time.”


	10. September 14th, 2019 - Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello from quarantine! My family is in voluntary quarantine for the next two weeks. We're doing what we can to flatten the coronavirus curve.
> 
> I know many people are in the same situation, and need positive distractions, so I've decided to post more often than I usually would over the next few weeks. Chapters may be a bit shorter. The work won't be as painstakingly edited as it usually is; I appreciate copy edits, canon inconsistencies, and Brit-pick corrections in the comments.
> 
> By the time this fanfic is complete, it will read slightly differently throughout. I'll definitely be editing as I go, in an effort to post more often.
> 
> Please leave comments and encouragement, and feel free to contact me through Tumblr (I'm earnestdesire there, too). Online community is a lifesaver at times like this.
> 
> Stay safe. Stay sane. You guys are the best.

**Saturday, September 14 th, 2019**

He could hear pounding. It wasn’t only his head.

“Harry!” came another shout from the bedroom door. “Get _up,_ Harry!”

He slapped blindly at the bedside table until he located his glasses, shoving them onto his face with enough force to sting the bridge of his nose. He squinted at the clock. 9:02 AM.

Someone cursed loudly and then: “Alohamora!”

Harry’s bedroom door clicked open, and Teddy barreled into the room like a pajama-clad tornado. “Harry! It’s the Floo!”

Creaking upright with a groan, Harry said, “What?”

“The Floo!” Teddy pulled hard at his own hair, then grabbed Harry by the arm. “McGonagall, at the Floo. She won’t tell me _anything!”_

Harry leapt from the bed, and dashed so quickly down the hall that he was dragging Ted behind him. They crashed down two floors to the basement kitchen, Harry’s heart pounding. Minerva McGonagall’s moss-tinted face waited calmly in the hearth.

“Professor?” Harry gasped. She frowned.

“No one is dying,” she said, voice totally devoid of judgement. “As I told Mr. Lupin.”

“You didn’t tell my anything,” Teddy groused. He was leaning hard against the worktop.

“You are not Mr. James Potter’s father,” McGonagall said. “It would be inappropriate to speak to you alone.”

_“Please,_ Professor,” Harry repeated. “What’s wrong with James?”

Her flickering face went pinched. “Nothing, actually. He was not the victim.” She drew a crackling breath. “James was the aggressor, I’m afraid.”

Harry sank into a seat, dragged a hand through his bedhead. “James attacked someone?”

“So it would seem.”

“Who?” Harry forced through the blurriness of potion-assisted sleep. “When? _Why?”_

“I’m quite willing to answer all of your questions,” McGonagall said, “but I require your presence at Hogwarts.”

“I have to come in? For a meeting?” Harry’s heart sank. It was unusual for parents to visit Hogwarts at all; even more so for a student infraction.

“I think it best, Harry.”

“Yeah. Right.” 

_(“I’m not telling that story more’n once, Golden Boy.”)_

Harry wiped a hand across his mouth and sighed. “I can come today, soon as I’ve let the office know. Just for the day, d’you think?”

Professor McGonagall’s ageless eyes seemed to waver. “Best make it an overnight.”

“Bloody hell,” Teddy murmured. Harry couldn’t help but agree.

“Can I bring Ted?” When McGonagall’s eyebrow went up, he explained, “Teddy’s been helping a lot with James, since the accident. I think it’d help.”

“As you wish,” she nodded and popped. “I’ll prepare the guest rooms. Do endeavor to hurry, Harry. I don’t think the anticipation is doing anyone much good.”

“Cheers,” Harry agreed. “I’ll get there as quick as I can.”

“Thank you.” McGonagall smiled, but only just. “Until then?”

Her head disappeared from the Floo. _(Pop!)_

“This is such shit,” Teddy moaned, dropping his head to the worktop dramatically.

“I’m sorry. I should’ve asked you if you could come, first.”

“‘Course I’m coming, Harry, don’t be daft.” Teddy stood up again and rubbed hard at his eyes. “Let me send George an Owl, and I’ll get packed. You need me to run out for anything, before we go?”

Harry smiled. “All good, Ted. Thank you.”

Teddy stuck his head out the back door to the garden, calling for Pellimore. The russet-and-cream barn owl swooped into the kitchen, shaking dew from her feathers as she landed on a twisty perch near the warm stove. “Hey lady,” Ted crooned, stroking her feathers. “Got to send a quick one to Wheezes. Want to visit Freddy?”

Pellimore’s head tilted. She liked Freddy Weasley. Most animals did.

While Teddy scratched out a quick note to George, Harry got coffee brewing and put the kettle on again for Ted. It had boiled nearly dry in the younger man’s haste to warn Harry about the Floo. Then he sliced and toasted several pieces of bread, reheated some sausages from yesterday’s breakfast, and moved everything to the table with a Wingardium Leviosa. ( _“Make the ‘gar’ nice and long,”_ he always thought to himself).

“Cheers, Harry,” Teddy said, tucking into breakfast with vigor.

The motions were rote, and soothing, but Harry found he couldn’t stomach the thought of any breakfast. He doctored his coffee, made sure the cast iron stove was set low, and made his way up the stairs to get ready for the arduous journey to Scotland.

The shower was too hot, his head too fuzzy. He scrubbed up quickly, trying to wash himself awake. It didn’t help. With a resigned sigh, Harry toweled off and pulled a small glass vial from the top shelf of the medicine cabinet.

The antidote to Draught of Peace tasted like raw chestnuts, with a thick, sludgy texture, but Harry choked it down in one swallow. He had a lot of practice.

Harry didn’t bother waiting for Pellimore to return, but sent off his Patronus to Spinnet. Her curly-horned ram returned quickly, speaking in Alicia’s worried voice.

_“All good, Potter, never fret. I’ll get the word out to Flint and Diggle. Did you want me to contact Ron? I’ll step in for today, at the meeting with Allen and the Unspeakables. Let’s review my notes when you’re back on Monday, yeah? Hope all is well with James. Take care.”_

Alicia Spinnet was nothing less than a goddess. Harry wondered how she was getting on with the new receptionist—a chubby young man with a winning smile, and a tendency to sing while he sorted mail. He had a nice voice. Spinnet vetted the poor bastard within an inch of his young life, even going so far as to interview the man’s mother. This one, she assured Harry, was sane, sedulous, and straight.

_What’s his name again?_ Harry wondered. _Ah, bugger it._

Harry sent Prongs off again with a thank you, and a promise to contact Ron for himself. Then he dressed quickly and warmly, threw a change of clothes into a satchel, and chugged his remaining caffeine.

“Ready, Teddy?” he asked, back downstairs in the entry hall.

“Hardly, Harry,” Ted recited back (his standard, if nonsensical, reply).

Harry sent a final Patronus to Ron, “Sorry, mate. I know Mione wants to debrief tomorrow afternoon, but I have to run up to Hogwarts for the weekend. James is in some kind of trouble. I’ll Floo you when I know more. Can you send an Owl to Luna’s office for me, care of Sol Eisenberg? I’m supposed to meet with him this afternoon. Talk soon!”

Ted pulled an umbrella from the still-pretty-ugly troll leg umbrella stand. His amber eyes were serious. They stepped out on the flagstone stoop, joined hands, and Disapparted with a _crack!_

A series of four uncomfortable Apparitions later, Harry and Teddy landed just outside the Hogwarts gates. Teddy popped open the Holyhead Harpies umbrella, and Harry ducked under it with him. A pair of pillar-perched stone boars turned their heads, just slightly, to regard them both.

“Harry Potter and Edward Tonks,” Harry told the pigs. “Here to see Headmistress McGonagall.”

The boars turned forward again, apparently unimpressed. Massive iron gates swung open soundlessly.

Teddy and Harry followed the paved path across the grounds. Paved paths were something Harry did not remember from his own Hogwarts days. There had been no ramps, no lifts, no accessible toilets. In the blind selfishness of youth, Harry never found that strange.

He wondered how a child like James managed, back then. If they got to come to Hogwarts at all.

“Should’ve skipped the sausages,” Ted confided, looking pale.

“‘Always Apparate on an empty stomach and an emptier bladder,’” Harry said.

“Yeah, thanks, Gran. What wise advice.”

Harry buffeted Teddy’s shoulder. “She’s a wise lady.”

“Oh, I know,” Teddy said. “Andromeda Tonks: The Human Almanac.”

“How’s she feeling?” Harry asked, mostly to distract them both from their purpose.

“Eh, it comes and goes.” Teddy stuffed his free hand in his coat pocket, hitching his bag higher onto slim shoulders. “I’d say she never complains, but—”

“That’d be a lie,” Harry snorted.

“She complains _constantly,_ but it isn’t anything serious. Her joints ache, she sleeps poorly, I’m never home enough anymore. Healers say she’s comfortable, most of the time. I’m considering piercing my tongue, just to give her new material to work with.”

“Kind of you.”

“Victoire’s not into the idea, but I think I could make it work.”

Harry frowned, feigning thoughtfulness. “You might lisp again.”

“Oi!”

“It’ll be adorable,” Harry grinned. “And nostalgic! The boys so enjoyed being called Jameth and Albuth.”

“Arsehole,” Teddy grumbled.

“Arth-hole!”

Harry’s godson shoved him out into the rain, just as the headmistress stepped through the doors onto the imposing stone steps of Hogwarts. Her Umbrella Charm shimmered with _plip-plopping_ raindrops.

Minerva McGonagall remained the master of the well-timed entrance.

“Gentlemen,” Professor McGonagall sighed.

“Professor,” Harry said, offering his hand as they climbed the staircase.

She shook it with a wry smile. “I wonder if I shall ever be free of Potters and Lupins, running amok in my school.”

Harry’s good mood vanished. “Right. James. I’m so sorry—”

McGonagall cut him off: “Perhaps the apologies should wait until after we’ve assembled the facts?” A little embarrassed, Harry followed along behind the headmistress with Teddy at his heels.

The entrance hall had been rebuilt, with muscle and magic, into a near-perfect replica of its pre-Battle grandeur. Two decades of hard use gave it the illusion of history. Stone floors echoed against plaster walls, lined floor-to-ceiling with whispering portraits (some restored, and some repainted). Hundreds of candles filled the space with warm light and the scent of beeswax. It should’ve been comforting, Harry always thought, but it still made him melancholy. It was so close, nearly perfect, but it wasn’t the same. As they bypassed the Great Hall, continuing down the corridor toward the headmistress’s office, Harry kept his eyes forward. He had no desire to get caught up at the Memorial Wall.

_(“Gemma Stevens. Half-blood. She deserves to be remembered.”)_

Harry bit down on the inside of his cheek. This wasn’t a day for honoring the dead.

The hallways were empty, breakfast long past and morning study in session. The quiet felt odd. Teddy kept glancing behind himself, as if expecting an ambush. Harry could hear the echo of voices around a distant corner, and the sound of hard shoes on stone staircases.

“James is waiting in my office,” McGonagall said. “He has not been forthcoming.”

Harry bit back a groan. “That’s typical, these days.”

“Hopefully, one of you gentlemen has better success than I,” she went on. “Madam Pomfrey would benefit from a bit more information.”

Harry’s step stuttered. “He put someone in hospital?”

“All in good time, Harry. Let’s wait for James to explain himself, hmm?”

The gargoyle spun aside with a murmured password—“Caithness”—and they stepped onto the winding staircase, traveling upward like a very twisty Muggle escalator.

At the top, McGonagall led the way through her office door, into the tower-top sanctum that had once belonged to Snape, and to Dumbledore, and to generations of powerful witches and wizards. Most of the portrait frames were occupied, but all were silent.

“James?”

“Hello, Dad,” his son muttered. Brown eyes grew wide. “Teddy! What’re you doing here?”

“Hi to you, too, mate.” Teddy dropped his bag with a _thunk_.

“I asked him to come,” Harry said. He took one of the armchairs in front of Professor McGonagall’s large desk. A flick of her wand conjured a third chair, and Teddy sank into it with a smile of thanks.

James was seated to Harry’s left, shoulders hunched and cane leaning precariously against the edge of an end table. There was a teacup and a crumb-covered plate at his elbow, and he'd been here long enough leave anxious divots in the thick carpet under his feet. He wore an expression Harry recognized. _Sheepish defiance_. He looked so much like his Uncle Ron that Harry almost smiled.

Minerva McGonagall removed her tall hat and sat down behind the desk. “Can I offer you some tea? A biscuit?”

“Yes, please,” Teddy said. Harry nodded.

Two cups of Darjeeling and a plate full of ginger nuts appeared on a small, round table. The table slid itself, abruptly, into the gap between Harry and Teddy’s chairs. James’s plate also refilled with biscuits, and his teacup started steaming again.

“Thank you,” Harry said, although he was never sure whether he was speaking to McGonagall, to the House-elves, or to Hogwarts itself.

“I asked you to come in because I believe James is not being entirely honest with me, nor with his Head of House,” McGonagall said. James shifted in his chair.

“Where is Neville?” Harry asked.

“Professor Longbottom is in hospital with the affected student.”

“Right. ‘Course.”

“Early this morning, there was a tremendous uproar in Gryffindor Tower. Another fifth-year boy, Samuel Wolpert, was found unconscious near James’s bed.”

“I was sleeping,” James muttered, strung tighter than a lute.

“Madam Pomfrey was notified. He has been in the hospital wing for the past four hours. Poppy exhausted all the usual remedies, and we’re moving on to Curse-specific treatment protocols. Which is why,” she arched her eyebrows, “we need to know which Curse was cast on Mr. Wolpert.”

“James?” Harry said, turning toward his son. “It’s important. However angry you were, I can’t imagine you want Sam to stay in hospital like this.”

“Why do you assume I did anything?” James demanded. His cheeks were flushed. “I didn’t Curse the bloody bastard! Maybe he did it to himself!”

Teddy snorted. “Because he took one look at you, fast asleep, and decided to Curse himself in the face?”

“He’s an _idiot,”_ James snarled. “I didn’t touch him!” Whatever composure he’d been holding onto with white knuckles disintegrated in front of Harry.

Harry leaned forward, wiping his mouth with a hand. “James—”

“They’re all _idiots_. Even Roxie’s acting like I’ve got a disease,” James ranted, trembling with it. “Like watching your mum die is contagious!”

Harry gasped, frozen in his chair. “ _Jamie_.”

“Don’t call me that!” James choked, eyes wild. “Mum calls me that!”

Harry reached out, but James smacked his hand away with a snarl. “I can’t walk, and I can’t fly, and Mum is dead. She is _dead,_ and nobody lets me forget it—not for a moment! Lily looks—” he wiped his face furiously with both hands. “Lily looks _just like her_. She’s crawling all over Gryffindor Tower, and flying all ‘round the pitch, and I—I can’t—”

“Lily’s flying?” Harry said, before he could swallow the impulse.

“She’s out there _all the time_. I can _see her_. Doesn’t she care that—that I don’t—”

“Yes,” Teddy said, and he was out of his chair to crouch in front of James. When did that happen? “She cares James. She’s not doing it to hurt you. She’s just a kid.”

“What in Merlin’s name am I doing here, Ted?” James demanded, with muffled venom. “All my year is so far ahead, I’m never going to catch up. I can’t fly. I can’t duel. I can’t even walk to bloody Hogsmeade.”

“You listen to me,” Teddy murmured, pulling James in by the back of the neck. Their foreheads clunked together in a clash of red and blue hair. “You _will_ catch up. You _will_ duel again, if that’s what you want.”

“What I want?” James muttered, looking mutinous despite his tight grip on Teddy’s shoulder.

Harry finally unstuck himself from his own grief to put a hand on Teddy’s other shoulder. “Yes, James. Whatever you want.” When James looked up, glaring into Harry’s eyes, he forced himself to stay cool, collected. “But we’ve got to get Sam patched up. You know that.”

“I didn’t Curse him,” James said mulishly.

“Okay,” Harry nodded, watching his son very closely, “but you know what did.”

He watched the struggle play out in James’s expressive face. Like Ginny, James had never been good at keeping his feelings to himself. He wore his anger, his disgust, his joy and sorrow so clearly. It was in his eyes, his mouth, in the set of his shoulders. Now, James had very narrow eyes but a quivery lower lip.

“He was getting into my trunk,” James admitted finally. He sounded far too weary for a boy of fifteen. “Some of the guys… they know I have potions on hand, for pain and sleep and so on.” Teddy sat back on his heels to give James space, and James dropped a fist into his lap.

“I’d caught a couple of them trying to nick some, the first week of school.”

“Did you tell Professor Longbottom?” Harry asked quietly.

“No,” James said, defensive. “Neville would’ve put my potions in the hospital wing, with Pomfrey. I’d have to go there any time I needed something. All because those bloody bastards couldn’t keep their hands to themselves! How is that fair?”

“It isn’t,” Teddy murmured, catching Harry’s eye.

_(“Harry bloody Potter, who had never been anything but vile to me and my friends in the seven years I’d known him.”)_

“It isn’t,” Harry repeated, sucking in a breath, “but that doesn’t explain what happened to Sam.”

James shook his head. “Rose helped me—” He stopped himself, eyes widening. “She won’t get in trouble, will she?”

Harry glanced at McGonagall and said, “I don’t think so. What did she help you do?”

“We found a spell in the library. The Spindle Curse.”

Professor McGonagall made an odd little sound of recognition. Harry frowned.

“I don’t remember that,” Harry faltered.

“You may know it as the Sleeping Beauty Curse,” McGonagall said. Harry’s confusion cleared. “The most famous incarnation, though I’m sure that’s only a children’s story. It is a nasty sleeping Curse, placed on objects. Touch activated.”

“It was in a big book of protection spells, for keeping things safe,” James argued.

“I see.”

“Rose only helped me find a spell,” James said, gritting his teeth. “I put it on the box I keep my potions in, inside my trunk. It wouldn’t react to me. It only set off the Curse if somebody else tried to open it.”

Harry was so tired. His head ached. “James,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “What if you were hurt? Someone might’ve needed to get those potions for you. Or what if one of your cousins, or your sister, needed something from your trunk?”

James didn’t respond to that, but he leaned all the way back in his seat. Teddy patted him twice on the knee, rising to his feet with a wince. He sat down in the chair to Harry’s right, sipping his tea. Then he said, “How do you break that Curse? True Love's Kiss?”

McGonagall’s lips pursed to suppress her smile. “No, Mr. Lupin. That won’t be necessary. There’s a tried-and-tested solution for this kind of injury.”

“Rennervate?” Harry offered.

But McGongall shook her head. “No, Potter. This calls for a potioneer.”


	11. ART INTERLUDE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a few modern Hogwarts uniforms to tide you over while I polish up the next chapter.
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr if you like. I'm earnestdesire there, too.
> 
> Love you all. Stay safe and shiny!


	12. September 14th, 2019 - Part Two

**Saturday, September 14 th, 2019**

Compared with the many days and nights Harry spent there, twenty-five years ago, the hospital wing was barely recognizable. Always the most modernized of all Hogwarts facilities, it'd been completely gutted after the war. Madam Pomfrey installed up-to-date magical monitoring equipment, as well as adjustable beds and safety rails. The floors and furniture were scrubbed clinical white. The walls were pale blue, the ceiling darker and Charmed to display fluffy clouds during the daytime, and pin-prick stars at night.

“Harry!” Pomfrey’s assistant cried, all dimples.

“Hello Lakshmi,” Harry greeted, stepping into her arms for a tight hug. She was a short-haired woman with brown skin and hip black spectacles. Lakshmi Patil was four years younger than Harry, but he often thought she’d not be out-of-place among the teenaged Auror recruits. She was calm and clever, with an easy smile. Lakshmi wore the uniform of the hospital wing (white apron over her clothes, white cap on her head) but she couldn’t look less like Poppy Pomfrey if she tried.

She was also Neville’s girlfriend. Lucky Nev.

“Glad to see you,” he told her, “despite the circumstances.”

She looked expectantly at McGonagall. “I take it you’ve sussed out the Curse, then?”

“James admitted to using the Spindle Curse to protect his belongings,” McGonagall informed her.

Madam Pomfrey ducked her head out of the office. “Spindle Curse, you say?” The woman had the ears of a House-elf.

“That’s right, Poppy,” McGonagall said. “We’ll need Professor Tugwood.”

Lakshmi grimaced. “Must we?”

“We’ll need… let’s see, a Grand Wiggenweld Potion followed by jobberknoll feather infusion, applied topically,” Madam Pomfrey read out from a large, leather-bound tome. “Abasi also recommends Wideye Potion, but I don’t like to combine billywig and jobberknoll—” She trailed off pensively.

“Muggle alternative, maybe?” Lakshmi offered.

“Mmm. Perhaps.” Pomfrey snapped the book shut. “Regardless, we don’t keep anything of this strength on hand. We’ll need them brewed fresh.”

“But Felicity is so—” Catching Pomfrey’s scowl, Lakshmi reddened. “Ah. She’s a very nice woman. And very accomplished.”

“Indeed,” McGonagall said with a glimmer of humor in her eye.

Harry indicated the curtained corner of the room. “Is Nev here?”

“Sitting with Mr. Wolpert,” Pomfrey said. “You can go say hello, but do not disturb my patient.”

Harry lifted a hand. “Wizard’s honor, ma’am.”

He tried not to squeak his shoes on the slick floor as he made his way across the ward. “Neville?” he called, but quietly.

“Harry?” Neville replied in whisper, sticking his head out of the white curtains. He winced. “Sorry about all this.”

“‘S not your fault, mate. James should know better.”

“Where is James?” Neville wondered, peering back toward the conference of fearsome women in argument across the room.

“Teddy’s with me. He and James went back to Gryffindor Tower, to disable the Curse and gather up all his potions. They’ll be headed this way.”

“Good, good,” Neville nodded, stepping completely out of the partition with his hands in his pockets. He cast a Silencing Charm on the curtains, and turned to lean against the wall. “What was it happened, after all?”

Harry sighed. “Some of the other boys, Sam included, were trying to steal James’s pain potions from his trunk. James and Rose put an anti-theft Curse on the bottles.”

Neville winced. “Bloody hell.”

“I’d like to say, ‘Never in our day!’ But with Fred and George in Gryffindor Tower—”

“That’s true enough.” Neville smiled. “You and Ron weren’t exactly well-behaved, if I remember correctly.”

“You do.”

Neville fidgeted, and looked up at Harry through dark lashes. That was a trick, since Neville was over 180 centimeters tall, and Harry’s glasses sat in line with Nev’s chin. “He’s a tough customer, your James. Hard to crack. Maybe I should’ve pushed harder.”

Harry shook his head. “Even at the best of times, James won’t open up until he’s ready. And then it’s like hitting the dam with a Bombarda.”

Neville ran a hand through his thick brown hair. “That’s all teenagers, mate. Trust me.”

“I wish _James_ would trust me,” Harry said, and then immediately wished he hadn’t.

“He’ll get there again, Harry. You’ve got to believe that.”

Harry said nothing, but leaned more heavily into the wall. Neville crossed his arms as he watched Pomfrey and Lakshmi nodding to each other, a small frown on his face. He looked tired.

“D’you think you’ll ever have any?” Harry asked. “Kids, I mean?”

Neville blushed, though he didn’t look embarrassed. “I feel a bit like I already do. Not that it’s the same, mind! I know it’s worlds different. But I get them for ten months a year, for seven years. All the little triumphs and heartbreaks.” He looked back at Harry with a shrug. “I feel guilty about that, sometimes. That I get to be here, and you parents don’t.”

“I’m grateful to you for it. I miss them, but I trust you.”

“Means a lot,” Neville said. “I’m not feeling all that trustworthy at the mo’. I hate that I missed so much with James.”

“We all did. And anyway, Pomfrey says they can cure Sam pretty easily.”

“Good, good. Found the reversal spell then?”

“Potions. Tugwood’ll have to brew them.”

“Oh.” Inexplicably, Neville went red.

“…Nev?”

“She is—erm, Felicity is very—”

“Nice?” Harry suggested, amused. “Accomplished?”

“Poppy! Darling!”

Harry jumped, bumping his shoulder into Neville. The taller man sighed, sounding equal parts pleased and long-suffering.

“Waking up Sleeping Beauty, are we?” The speaker was a voluptuous witch in deep purple robes. Her hair was dark, her skin quite pale, and she had full red lips stretched in a bright smile. She moved in a practiced, rolling sort of gait that could be only partially attributed to the very high heels on her boots. Harry could see black lashes fluttering all the way across the room.

“Yes, yes, Felicity, a Spindle Curse. You’re familiar with the common remedies, one assumes?” Madam Pomfrey said in her crisp, professional voice.

“How terribly romantic,” Professor Tugwood crooned.

“Actually, it was implemented as an anti-theft spell,” Lakshmi said, and seemed to smile in spite of herself. “The boy who was Cursed tried to lift prescribed potions from his dormmate. Not exactly bodice-ripping.”

“My my! That’s terrible. Samuel Wolpert, isn’t it? He’s always so charming in my classes. We’ll get the little so-and-so fixed up in a jiff, never fret!”

Professor Tugwood’s sparkling eyes slid down the ward, taking in the curtained cubicle. Then they paused, just a moment, on Neville, before coming to rest on Harry. Her black eyebrows went up.

“Is that—No! Surely not _Harry Potter?”_

Harry raised a hand in an awkward wave. Neville groaned quietly.

“Mr. Potter!” Professor Tugwood cried. “I’m so pleased to meet you.” She clicked and rolled her way down the room toward them. Behind her, Lakshmi shot daggers out of her eyeballs at Nev.

“Hello Professor,” Harry greeted her, offering a hand.

She shook it heartily. Her fingers were unexpectedly callused. “Call me Felicity, please. I’m such a fan of your work, you know.”

“Erm,” Harry pulled his hand away, confused. “My work? As an Auror?”

“Yes, of course. But I was referring to your spectacular feats of bravery during the war!”

Harry recognized the sinking feeling in his gut.

“Right,” he said. “Well, I appreciate the thought.”

“My family was living in Morocco, at the time,” she went on. “I was only a child, you understand, but my parents were always great supporters of Dumbledore.”

“Were they?”

“My, yes. My great-grandmother—Sacharissa Tugwood, surely you’ve heard of her? The world-famous potioneer? She was a close, personal friend of Albus Dumbledore in their youth. A genius in her own right.”

“Of course,” Harry said faintly.

“I haven’t a thimble-full of her talent,” she chuckled, “but I do well enough. I’ll have our poor little Lion on his feet in no time.”

“I’m sure you will,” Neville interjected. Lakshmi made an odd, grumbly sound from her desk. Felicity grinned.

“We were wondering, Felicity,” McGonagall called, drawing everyone’s attention. “Can we substitute a Muggle treatment for the prescribed Wideye Potion? Poppy’s not comfortable with the potential for a billywig-jobberknoll interaction.”

The Potions Master pursed her lips. “Hmm. Muggle medicines aren’t really my area.”

“We could Owl Draco,” Neville offered, and Felicity nodded.

“Certainly, yes. He might have a suggestion. Shall I send for a consult?”

McGonagall frowned, but said, “If you must.”

Madam Pomfrey bustled out of the storeroom, arms full of blankets. “Whomever is doing the brewing, I don’t think it’s wise to stand around while there’s work to be done.”

Harry shifted awkwardly, but Felicity only laughed. “I’d best get on with it, then. Lots to brew!” She turned back to Harry with wry smile. “So glad to meet you. Let’s chat again over dinner, hmm?”

Harry felt his mouth flap open and shut a few times before he managed: “Sure?”

“Excellent! Tata for now, my dears!”

The silence felt strange and echoing behind her. Harry couldn’t decide what he wanted ‘a consult’ with Draco Malfoy to mean. It took a few deep breaths before Harry regained his equilibrium enough to say, “That’s Professor Tugwood?”

“Yep,” Neville replied.

“Well. I understand James’s unexpected interest in potions.”

Lakshmi threw her hands up with a huff. “Circe’s saggy tits!”

That said it all, really.

As with most things medical, Harry found himself in a cycle of hurry-up-and-wait. Hurry out of bed. Wait on jump after jump of Apparition. Hurry to Hogwarts. Wait on McGonagall’s explanation. Hurry to the hospital wing. Wait on Draco bloody Malfoy. Of course.

Teddy helped James check his potion bottles for tampering, under the watchful eye of Madam Pomfrey, and then sort them into a locked cabinet. James pleaded exhaustion, too tired for luncheon in the Great Hall. Harry thought he was telling the truth. James _looked_ tired, and he winced a little when he got up from his chair.

“We’ll talk more after dinner,” Harry told him, which his son accepted with barely-disguised relief.

Ted and Harry, however, were properly starving. They made their way to the Great Hall with Lakshmi and Neville. Teddy quizzed Neville enthusiastically on the Hogwarts gossip, while Harry hung back in restful silence. Lakshmi took his elbow to descend yet another staircase.

“Would you like to speak about James’s physical therapy?” she wondered. “Or are you burned out on tough conversations for the weekend?”

Harry shot her a speculative look. “What do you know?”

“I hear things,” she declared, rather mysteriously.

“Let’s just say: I could’ve used my own therapy appointment today.”

She squeezed his arm. “I’m sure.”

“I do want to talk about James’s health,” Harry said, pulling on his Good Dad Cap through sheer force of will. “I’m pretty sure Al and Lily don’t know I’m here yet, though. And I might draw some attention. After lunch?”

“Sure. I sometimes forget that you always cause a ruckus.”

“I’m very exciting. Not sure how you missed it.”

“Sorry, but I’ve got two older sisters who were quick to disillusion me.”

Harry faked a gasp. _“Parvati?_ I took her to a ball!”

“I heard that was rather lackluster. Although she did get to dance with Michael Corner.”

“Oh. Nice one.”

She shook her head, grinning. “You didn’t even notice.”

“Not her fault,” Harry said, sheepish. “She was perfectly lovely.”

“Morgana, I know!” She noticed Neville shooting her a glance, and smiled drolly. “Imagine growing up with those two for older sibs. It was a routine hit to the ego.”

Harry nudged her a little as the passed into the Great Hall. “I think you’re brilliant,” he told her, quietly and honestly.

She nudged him back.

The staff table was only half-full. McGonagall sat in the middle, cutting a slice of ham into neat little squares.

To her left was Filius Flitwick, looking exactly the same as when Harry took his Charms courses in 1997. Next to Flitwick sat Sybill Trelawney, the Divination professor, trailing scarves and the scent of patchouli. On Sybill’s other side, a very quiet woman named Zoe Anderson-Barre who taught the new Literature & Writing courses implemented after the war.

On McGonagall’s right, the Frenchman Guillaume Comtois, who took over Transfiguration and whom Al idolized. Aurora Sinastra (Astronomy) sat beside Adrian Pucey—flight instructor and Quidditch coordinator. Pucey played Chaser for Puddlemere, before an injury forced him into early retirement three years ago. He played against Ginny, and the Harpies, plenty of times. He’d played against Harry, back in the day.

“Hello Professor Sinastra, Professor Comtois. Pucey,” Harry nodded, as Neville, Teddy, and Lakshmi made their way to the other end of the table.

“Potter,” Pucey nodded back with blatant confusion. “Visiting the kids?”

“Among other things. They behaving for you?”

“Lily’s a strong flier,” the raven-haired man said, no-nonsense. “No surprise, there. Only one person in your family with no interest in Quidditch, and you managed to Sort him into Slytherin.”

Harry couldn’t help grinning. “The grand Gryffindor plot.”

“No doubt.”

Professor Comtois shrugged in a distinctly Gallic way. “I will take Albus’s grades and good behavior over the usual athlete’s indifference, any day.”

“That so?” Pucey snorted, with a smile. And then, startlingly earnest, “Glad to have James back. Missed him, last Spring.”

Professor Sinastra, who had been reviewing notes with polite disinterest, looked up. Her black eyes gleamed. “Agreed. Fourth year wasn’t the same without him.”

Harry drew a long breath. Blinked. “Cheers. I’m just going to…” He made a vague motion toward Teddy, on the far end of the table, and Pucey nodded.

“Good to see you, Potter.”

He made his way to his seat, head down. When Harry sat, Teddy slid a cup of coffee into his line of sight without a word.

Harry could feel all the eyes resting on him, like the brush of a hundred Homenum Revelio Charms. His stomach growled, but he wasn’t hungry. He gulped the perfectly-prepared coffee. Teddy dropped a lump of mashed potato onto his empty plate.

“Eat, Harry,” he murmured. “Al and Lily will be here soon.”

It felt like swallowing wallpaper paste, but he managed several bites.

“Ted? Dad!”

Harry watched his daughter fly up the center aisle of the Great Hall. She wore Gryffindor robes and a big grin, her hair in two braids tied off with that looked like neon-colored telephone cable.

“What’re you guys doing here?” she demanded, which made Lakshmi laugh.

Harry stood to meet her as she came ran around the end of the staff table. He accepted her hug with an _ooof!_ and a smile. Teddy picked her up off her feet, shaking her around in the air like a rag doll.

“Had to see a man about a horse,” Ted told her, and Lily rolled her eyes.

“No, really! Are you visiting Nev—erm, Professor Longbottom?”

Harry turned his back to the avidly watching dining hall, closing off their conversation behind a quick Muffliato. “Had a meeting with the Headmistress about James. But nothing to worry about.”

Lily frowned. “Was it about the broken elevator?”

“The lift's broken?” Teddy replied.

“Well, not _now_. Somebody fixed it, but it was belching some kind of smoke for a couple days. Smelled like petrol. James had to miss a class on Monday.”

“Nobody told me,” Harry admitted.

“Not even Al? Weird. I didn’t, ‘cause I thought he would.”

“He probably thought the same,” Ted said.

“You should get some lunch,” Harry said, pulling a little on one of Lily’s braids. “We’ll be here until tomorrow.”

“Can I show you my room? And Artie’s cat?”

“‘Course. I’d love to.”

“Wicked! I’ll find you after Gobstones club!”

Lily hurried back to the Gryffindor table, where she was immediately bombarded with whispered questions. Artemis and Louis, both decked out in gray and green, carried over their plates and slid into seats next to Lily.

It was like that all over the Great Hall, Harry noticed. Hufflepuff yellow at the Slytherin table, Gryffindors sitting with Ravenclaws. No sign of Al yet, but Roxie and Dominique were eating with Massimo Zabini. Quiet Molly sat surrounded by studying Ravenclaws. Lorcan and Lysander were seated at the Hufflepuff table, and the younger students around them seemed nonplussed at their presence. It reminded Harry of Luna. He smiled.

Harry was watching when Al, Scorpius, and Rose came through the main doors. He was watching when Al noticed Harry at the professors’ table, and still watching when his middle child rolled his eyes to the ceiling with a sigh. He risked a small wave.

“Al!” Teddy shouted. “The Great and Terrible Albus Potter arrives at last!”

The Great Hall broke out in giggles. Al turned so red that he looked combustible. Rose led the way toward them, as Scorpius waved back enthusiastically. “Hello Mr. Lupin!” Scorpius cried. “Hello Mr. Potter. How lovely to see you! Are you visiting with Professor Longbottom? Has he told you yet about the incident with the snargaluff? Because Albus and I never intended to tickle it quite so aggressively—”

“Hello, Scorpius,” Harry sighed. “Nice to see you. What’s this about snargaluffs?”

Al dug his toe into the stone floor. “Nothing.”

“It really wasn’t much,” Neville confirmed, although he was smirking. “Unusually sensitive specimen, I’m afraid.”

“‘Course,” Harry said, very seriously.

“Why’re you here?” Al wanted to know; his voice was so quiet that Harry had to sit forward to hear him.

“Had a meeting with the headmistress. Nothing for you to worry about.”

Al fidgeted. “Was it about James?”

“Might’ve been.”

“Right.” Al scrubbed a hand through his wavy hair. It looked like he hadn’t brushed it since he left home two weeks ago. Al’s robes were on skew-whiff and his glasses were smudged. Rose had a quill tucked into her ponytail, but was otherwise dressed normally. Scorpius looked like an advert for The Finest in British Wizarding Education.

“Why are we whispering?” Scorpius whispered, gray eyes very wide.

“Because Al doesn’t want people to know he’s worried about James,” Rose answered in an equally low voice. Al made an affronted squeak.

“Because everybody is _watching us,”_ Al corrected through gritted teeth.

“Oh,” Scorpius said, glancing over his shoulder. “Oh, they are! I hope I haven’t sat in something…”

“I don’t think they’re staring at you,” Rose explained patiently.

“Are they staring at Teddy? His hair looks very nice that color.”

Teddy started to laugh. “Yes! It’s me. They are all fascinated with my teal hair.”

“I asked Father if I could dye my hair a color last Summer,” Scorpius said. “He said I had to be old enough to Glamour it, and then it was up to me.”

Harry was amused. “Is that why you wanted me to teach you Glamours?”

“That, and I’d like to try out that new sweets shop in Hogsmeade.”

Al shot Scorpius a warning look, but it was too late.

“New sweet shop?” Harry frowned. “Why do you need a Glamour to buy sweets?”

Rose had Scorpius by the arm, but he went on blithely, “Oh, well, they won’t serve Malfoys. Father says we should just ask the neighbors to pick us up something, but it looks so lovely inside the shop. Very colorful! Rose, _really,_ that’s starting to hurt—”

“They won’t serve Malfoys?” Harry interrupted. There was a tight, familiar feeling in his chest. He shoved it all the way down to his toes.

“They won’t serve Father, anyway, or me.” Scorpius patiently pried Rose’s fingers loose. Al had his glasses off as he rubbed at his temples. “You know how it is. Perhaps they’d sell to Mother now?”

“I don’t know how it is,” Harry admitted, frown deepening. “Do you often get turned away from stores?”

“Oh! Not too often. A few places in Hogsmeade, though not so many these days. Diagon Alley’s rather hit-or-miss. Father usually Owl-orders from London, anyway.”

“Right.”

“Harry…” Teddy murmured in a warning tone. Harry hissed a slow breath.

“You kids should get some lunch,” he said calmly. Al nodded, just slightly, and it warmed Harry a little. “We’ll be here through tomorrow. Plenty of time to catch up.”

“Brilliant,” Al muttered, and Harry couldn’t tell if he meant it or not.

“Come on, boys,” Rose commanded. “I’m hungry.” The mismatched Slytherins trailed along behind her dutifully.

“One problem at a time,” Teddy advised, plunking a sausage onto Harry’s plate.

Several hours later, Harry was seated in an empty classroom near the hospital wing with Teddy. They were attempting to wrangle Harry’s unopened correspondence—Ron sent it over via the headmistress’s Floo. Teddy scanned the fan letters, while Harry dealt with anything more professional.

“Listen to this,” Teddy insisted. _“‘I am fourteen years old, but I already know I want to be an Auror. Did you know you wanted to be an Auror when you were fourteen? My dad claims you’d already killed a Basilisk by then, but he tells a lot of lies.’”_

Harry laughed. “Keep Pile. I’ll write back to him.”

“Her.”

“Even better.”

“I’m not getting nearly as many passionate declarations as I expected,” Teddy mused. “Disappointing. I could’ve memorized the good lines to use on Victoire.”

“Do lines work on Victoire? She doesn’t seem the type.”

“Who knows, mate? Perhaps my absence will make her heart grow fonder.”

“It’s only two days,” Harry grinned.

But Teddy shrugged, looking down at the letters again. “We broke up again last week.”

Harry’s heart sank. “Ted. You didn’t tell me.”

“I know.” Teddy shuffled some parchment. “She does this, though. Blows hot and cold. Gran says it’s a Veela thing, and that she’ll settle down in a few years.”

Harry couldn’t help wondering about that, because Victoire’s mother had the loyalty of a bonded swan. “Could be,” he evaded.

“I know you think it’s a bad idea to wait for her,” Teddy said, faintly accusing.

“I don’t think it’s a _bad_ idea. I just think she could treat you a bit better.”

“Oh, come off it—”

“You know I love Victoire,” Harry argued. “She’s a good person, and very intelligent. But she doesn’t take your feelings seriously, Ted. You know that.”

“She says she loves me,” Teddy said, licking his pierced lip. “But she doesn’t want to be like our parents—married to their school sweethearts before they’ve even really grown up.”

Harry could see her point, but: “Victoire’s dad was 27 when he married Fleur.”

_“She_ was only 20,” Teddy retorted.

“True. But… well, it was a war.”

Teddy rolled his eyes. “No one’s arguing against you and Ginny, and Ron and Hermione, and all those couples who rushed to the altar after Voldemort kicked the Pensieve. You all seem happy enough.”

Harry’s mind skittered and skipped over thoughts of Malfoys, and divorce, and illegitimate children. He didn’t let himself linger.

“Not every couple works out, no matter how old they were when they met.” Harry pulled the letters out of Teddy’s worrying hands. “Maybe this time you should consider dating somebody new, just while you and Vic are on a break. It doesn’t have to be serious.”

Teddy’s mouth pursed. “Yeah. Maybe.”

“And look, here’s a suitably sappy letter for you. _‘My dearest Harry—’_ I always love when they start like we’re close, personal friends.”

Ted snatched the letter out of Harry’s hands, some of his usual spark returning. _“‘My dearest Harry,’”_ he read. _“‘I am overcome with grief over the loss of your wife. I am heartbroken! I am devasted! I am also, coincidentally, single—’”_

“Are you _actually_ sitting in here reading your fan mail?”

The gravelly voice from the doorway wasn’t precisely familiar, but it was unmistakable. It sent a short, sharp thrill down Harry’s back. Harry was scowling before he’d even turned around.

“Malfoy,” he snapped in greeting.

“Hello Potter. And hello Teddy.” Malfoy leaned in the open doorway, arms crossed. He was dressed for the outdoors—for the rainy walk to Hogwarts, no doubt—in heavy black boots and a waxed canvas cloak. His beard had a few droplets caught in it, sparkling like diamonds.

“Hi Draco,” Teddy said, a bit nervously. He stood, but then seemed unsure whether to approach his older cousin. His smile was a touch too bright. “You’re here to help with Sam Wolpert?”

“Indeed,” Malfoy nodded. He was frowning (he was _always_ frowning), but there was a glint of humor in his eye. “Perhaps you’d like to walk me over to Poppy’s office? I haven’t seen you since Scorpius left for school.”

“Er, yeah. Sure. Harry and I were just…”

“Dealing with my mail,” Harry put in, feeling slightly flushed. “It piles up.”

Malfoy’s wry expression went flat. “Of course. Shall we?”

Ted sent Harry a vaguely apologetic look as he followed Malfoy out the door. Harry looked around at the mess of his letters, at the bright purple stationary Teddy’d been reading from when Malfoy arrived. It smelled like lavender perfume. Harry crumpled the flowery parchment in his fist, and dropped his head to the tabletop with a groan.


	13. September 14th, 2019 - Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I intended to post a lot more during quarantine, but my daughter's online schooling took up much more time and attention than I could've predicted. Then, of course, the world exploded around us. Or... perhaps it just came into focus. Either way, I'm sorry for not keeping my promise to post.
> 
> To be honest, I hadn't intended to share this with you yet, either. It's rough. It needs edits. If you notice issues, let me know and I'll correct them. By the time this fic in finished, it'll have plenty of changes throughout.
> 
> The thing is: Our community needed WORDS right now. Even imperfect ones. We need messages of hope, to overwrite the hate we've had to swallow in the last few days.
> 
> The Author has been tweeting like a maniac again, and while I can't claim I'm surprised by her comments, I find I can still be disappointed. As a writer, I sometimes wrestle with letting go of the worlds I create once the project goes to print. I think most of us do. I understand that for fans, also, it can be difficult to see our Hero Authors expose their flaws. It can feel like it tarnishes the book, and the characters, and the part of that story that lives in us, too.
> 
> But friends, please believe me: Nothing Rowling says or does can change the part of her story that lives in YOU.
> 
> Books are bigger than their authors, bigger than words on a page. Books are portals. Books are treasure maps. Books are Rorschach inkblots, and they only have meaning because YOU do. The reader is the point. Your imagination, your passion, your big, beautiful heart... that's the point. So fuck The Author. She doesn't deserve you anymore.
> 
> TRANS LIVES ARE IMPORTANT. INTERSEX LIVES ARE IMPORTANT. NONBINARY LIVES ARE IMPORTANT.
> 
> You don't owe anybody your respect or adoration, no matter how brilliant their work. Rowling is an ignorant person. She's a hateful person. She doesn't understand basic concepts of biological science, but her wealth and fame have isolated her so completely that she will not listen to reason. So fuck that. Fuck her. The story doesn't belong to her anymore.
> 
> YOU are the story. WE are the story. Harry Potter doesn't need her anymore, and neither do we.
> 
> I screen my comments, and I won't post a single one that attacks or denigrates vulnerable people whom I respect. So if you try that with me? Fuck you, too.
> 
> I hope this chapter brings you a bit of light in a very dark time. I'm posting some links at the end of the chapter to charities which assist some of the people most at risk right now: Black trans people in the United States. If you have a little money, you can make a donation. If you don't, that's okay. Your big, beautiful hearts are enough.
> 
> Love you. Truly. Keep yourselves safe for me, please.

**Saturday, September 14 th, 2019**

It’d been one hell of a day already, and Harry just wasn’t prepared to watch Draco Malfoy use an iPhone.

It was a slim, shiny, dark green phone with too many camera lenses on the back. Malfoy didn’t use a cell phone case, of course. Most wizards just cast Impervius and Fianto Duri on their electronics, and got on with it. Most wizards who _carried_ personal electronics, that is, which still wasn’t typical. A cellular phone wasn’t like a toaster or a washing machine or even a television. It was a very complex bit of Muggle technology, and keeping it working around magic was finicky business. And within the grounds at Hogwarts? Most people didn’t bother. Harry didn’t.

Malfoy, apparently, bothered. And that bothered Harry rather a lot.

Malfoy’s long, quick thumbs typed away at the lit-up screen. His platinum brows were furrowed. He chewed both lips. Teddy kept interjecting search ideas, which Malfoy mostly ignored. Poppy and Lakshmi had several books open on Lakshmi’s warded desktop, and they’d given Harry a few scrolls to look through for mentions of the Wideye Potion they were trying to replicate. Malfoy licked his bitten lips. He used a pinching motion to zoom in on some text he was trying to read.

Harry shook himself, and looked away.

_Malfoy’s only using a bloody phone, for fuck’s sake. Get a grip_.

“We could consider Amantadine,” Lakshmi offered, but Malfoy shook his head.

“Powdered unicorn horn in the Grand Wiggenweld Potion,” he rasped, without looking up from his phone. “It reacts too much like sodium bicarbonate. Can’t risk it.”

“There’s no unicorn in Wiggenweld,” Lakshmi argued.

“Not in the standard potion, no. That’s largely why you don’t keep Grand Wiggenweld on hand. I’ve been trying to figure out if Levodopa has the same contraindications, but I worry it’s just too strong for an application like this.”

“Could we replace the unicorn horn in the potion?” Harry found himself asking. He cleared his throat and tried to look competent.

Malfoy glanced over at him. “Because unicorn horns are so easy to imitate?”

“I don’t know, do I?” Harry groused. “Hermione says most rare ingredients do have substitutions—”

“Of course she says that,” Malfoy drawled. “She’s built an entire career on championing magical beasts’ and beings’ rights. She’d never condone the harvest of unicorn horn, even ethically.”

“But you do?” Harry shot back. Malfoy sneered.

“Not all magical ingredients can be substituted. Not without reducing the efficacy of the potion. Unicorn horn is unique in its ability to neutralize and purify Curses. You should know that, seeing as it’s second-year potions theory—”

“I haven’t taken a potions course since I was _sixteen,_ Malfoy. I certainly haven’t spent my entire adult life studying the subject. Isn’t that why you’re here?”

“No, actually.” The bearded blighter finally put down his phone. Teddy shot Harry a long-suffering look. He couldn’t be sure which of them it was meant to shame.

“Felicity is a perfectly capable brewer,” Malfoy went on. “I’m here for my expertise in combining Muggle and Magical remedies, as you _really should know_. You’re so predictable, Potter. Have you been replaying the highlights of your fan mail inside your head, this whole time?”

“Cease fire, Draco!” Teddy cut in. Though it wasn’t said sharply, Malfoy immediately closed his mouth and picked up his cellular. “You, too, Harry,” Teddy said, pointing a finger at him. “You can snip and snipe at one another as much as you like, once Sam’s back on his feet.”

“Right.” Harry ducked his head, and tried very hard not to scowl. At least Malfoy stopped talking, which was the main thing. Harry was definitely _not_ watching him go back to work.

Draco Malfoy had grown paler with age. He was the fairest person Harry knew, with skin so porcelain and pore-less that Harry used to wonder if he used a Glamour. His hair wasn’t even properly blond—it was pure, unrelieved white, each strand thicker than it seemed it should be. Every part of Malfoy was cream, ivory, and snow. He wore black and gray, occasionally green, like the man still slept in the Slytherin dormitory. He wore his hair long enough to curl around his ears, in loose waves that seemed (to Harry) shockingly disheveled. His widow’s peak had increased, making his face was even more triangular.

Malfoy let the beard grow in while he was under house arrest, 20 years ago, and had never changed it. It was well-groomed, thick and short. Harry thought, at the time, that the beard made him look old. He didn’t look much different these days, though. He’d caught up to himself. It seemed Malfoy aged two decades in the six years following the war.

A disconcerting thought.

His eyes were the same pale silvery-gray, set deep under that heavy, frowning brow. His brow furrowed even when he meant to look friendly, which he was doing now. Weakly—aimed mostly at Teddy—but still.

“I don’t like any of the standard Muggle remedies for this,” Draco finally admitted, sounding somehow both superior and self-conscious. Harry looked away, although he hadn’t _really_ been looking. Obviously.

“I wonder if we could get around it by devising a way to counteract the interaction between billywig and jobberknoll,” Malfoy went on. Pomfrey made a considering sound, while Lakshmi just sighed and handed Malfoy a book. Malfoy thanked her, voice catching slightly on the words.

Harry had to draw one long, steadying breath. Malfoy’s voice—

It was the voice, more than his looks, that made Harry uncomfortable. Malfoy hadn’t spoken for six months after his release from Azkaban; that was common knowledge, widely reported. When he finally managed it, his voice was… damaged. Lower, hoarser, with a rattling quality when he tried to raise the volume too high. It wasn’t an unpleasant voice, not at all, unless you knew how much it’d changed. Harry had no idea what happened to Malfoy’s vocal chords while he served his term in Azkaban, but the damage was irreparable. Two decades later, the sound still sent a shiver down Harry’s spine.

Harry knew that Malfoy’s voice didn’t concern him, but he still didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want to wonder.

“I’m going to go check in with McGonagall,” he announced, as everyone looked up at him. He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Erm, just want to go over a few more things. About James.”

“Lily should be out of Gobstones Club at three o’clock,” Teddy said. “Want me to come with you?”

“‘S all right, mate. I’ll meet you in Gryffindor Tower, with Lily.” Harry’s eyes flickered toward Malfoy, who was (thankfully) looking away. “Take your time. Catch up.”

“Great! Erm, yeah, good,” Teddy fretted, and Harry beat a rather inelegant retreat.

Professor McGonagall did not seem surprised at his return. That was lowering, because Harry had no reason whatsoever to be visiting her office again today. He was sure he’d been an unpredictable child, once upon a time.

“I’m considering another fundraising effort,” the headmistress was telling him, “as a benefit for the Muggle Studies department.”

“Yeah?” Harry encouraged, biting back a yawn.

“Professor Finch-Fletchley would like to offer a few additional field trips into Muggle areas,” she went on. “Portkeys would be required, as well as Muggle currency.”

“Where’s Justin want to take them?” Harry wondered.

She frowned, “The theatre, I believe. He proposed a football match, but I can’t think that would be a safe environment for children.”

“Lots of Muggle kids go to football matches,” Harry said, grinning. “People very rarely fall 20 yards to the football pitch and break their arm. Or get smashed in the jaw with a bludger. Or Vanish the referees to foreign countries—”

“Yes, yes, Harry, I see. No need to belabor the point.” She snapped the T onto the end like the word itself was pointed. She slid a ledger across the desk, and picked up her quill.

“My kids like football well enough. Especially James.” Harry laughed, remembering: “And _Merlin_ , we took Scorpius Malfoy with us the last time. You can’t get a kid more Magical than that one. You should’ve seen him! Hoovering up meat pies like he’d never eaten before in his life! And babbling, of course, about everyone and everything. I had to Muffliato our whole group.” He sighed happily. “It was mad. Scorpius is a bit mad, though, eh?”

McGonagall’s head gave a skeptical tilt. “He and Albus are very close.”

“Best friends,” Harry agreed.

“I believe young Mr. Malfoy is not so much ‘mad’ as ‘unrestrained.’” Her quill scratched across parchment as she spoke. “And isn’t that a curious turnabout?”

Harry scratched his jaw, chewed on the tip of his tongue. “…Is it?”

“If there exists a man more restrained than Draco Malfoy, I’ll eat the Sorting Hat,” she mused. “Rather unexpected, then, for him to raise a child like Scorpius.”

“Could be Astoria’s influence,” Harry said, though he knew that was bollocks. McGonagall knew it, too, judging by her politely dismissive shrug.

“D’you think I was unrestrained?” He asked suddenly. McGonagall glanced up from her desk. “As a kid, I mean? Was I—well, unpredictable? Spontaneous?”

“Spontaneous,” she repeated, eyebrow lifting.

“No, sorry,” Harry mumbled. He reached for his tea. “Forget I asked.”

“I've always found you very hard to predict,” McGonagall said flatly. “You zigged when I thought you’d zag. It took a long time for me to realize I should assume the foolhardiest option was the one you’d choose. Inevitably.” She softened that observation with a small smile. “Dumbledore seemed to have you figured out.”

Harry nodded. Swallowed. Nodded again. “He did, didn’t he?”

“Fundamentally, I see little difference between the Harry Potter I taught to make mice into teacups, and Harry Potter the Head Auror. Reckless, yes, always with your _own_ life. But... " She sighed. "You aren’t a child. You’re a grown man, and Head Auror. A father. The foolhardiest option…” Her smile slipped. “It’s easier to risk one’s life when one feels quite entirely alone.”

Harry coughed, and shifted in his seat. “Ron and Hermione—”

“Are very good friends.”

_“Family,”_ Harry corrected, insisted. “Even before I married Gin.”

“I’m very glad you know that,” she said, looking back down at her work. “But they weren’t the only people who would have _missed_ you, Harry.”

The silence stretched, filled up the office with unspoken sentiment. When Harry was a little boy, the words ‘I love you’ felt like the most potent spell work in the universe. Rare, and raw, and risky, too. A spell that could not be unsaid, with consequences you could never predict. Harry thought that might be a feeling Minerva McGonagall knew well.

For all the risks Harry took, back then, those words were a leap too far.

“Professor?” Harry croaked.

She kept her eyes on her work. “Hmm?”

“Thank you.” Her hand stilled. “For loving my kids. For—for loving me.”

McGonagall peered over her glasses, beneath furrowed brows, and said, “It’s no trouble, Mr. Potter. It never has been.” Her eyes lowered and her quill began again before she muttered, “And thank _you_ for the same.”

“Erm, yeah.” Harry licked his lips. “Cheers.”

“We need to formulate a plan for James,” McGonagall side-stepped, slightly awkward. Her thin cheeks were pink. She tapped her quill against the desk. “We haven’t had a Cursed object brought into Hogwarts since… well, since you were a student here.”

Harry’s hackles went up. “I don’t think you can equate James protecting his own potions with Draco Malfoy trying to kill Dumbledore! It was a fairly harmless Anti-Theft Curse.”

“It’s a good deal more serious than that,” McGonagall vowed, setting the quill aside entirely. “Jinxes, hexes, silly Weasley products and potions… these are part of living with several hundred young people for ten months out of the year. Annoying, ordinary infractions. But Curses—as you know, Harry—are an entirely different band of banshees.”

_(“He was desperate!” Pansy snarled. “You’ve no idea what kind of Hell… Banshees and erklings…”)_

“Harry?” McGonagall called from the other end of a tunnel.

“Erm… Right.” Harry drew a breath, and had to force himself to release it. “Yes, you’re right. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t think James intended any harm, directly, but he wasn’t put off by the possibility.” She sighed, and adjusted her glasses on her nose. “That worries me.”

Harry slumped. “Me, too.”

“You know…” She paused, looking thoughtful. “Draco might have a few suggestions for how to better manage James’s pain.”

Harry stiffened again in his seat. “What? Why?”

“He mentioned that you haven’t consulted him, Harry,” she said carefully. “He is the prevailing expert in combining Muggle medical treatments with Magical healing.”

“I’m aware,” he fumed. “I was reminded less than an hour ago. In detail. By Malfoy.”

“Oh, be fair, Harry,” she scoffed. “When it comes to Draco’s aptitude, you seem to require reminders.”

“I don’t want reminders,” he snapped back. “I don’t want to think about—”

Harry cut himself off, but not soon enough. Not nearly.

It wouldn’t be right to call McGonagall’s expression ‘disappointment,’ but it wouldn’t be entirely wrong, either. “You don’t wish to think about Mr. Malfoy.”

Harry set his jaw. “Not particularly.”

“I see,” she nodded. He thought she probably did.

“Malfoy and I are _fine,”_ he declared, and he was getting very sick of declaring that, lately. “We’re civil. I would think, given our history, that’s a victory.”

“A small, but meaningful one,” McGonagall said.

“And I _like_ Scorpius. Astoria’s very, erm, pleasant. It’s not like we’re still schoolboys, squabbling over Quidditch and jinxing each other in corridors.”

“Well, I’m very glad to hear that,” the headmistress smirked. Harry didn’t even know the woman _could_ smirk.

“I should—” Harry cleared his throat. “I think Lily will be finishing up her club meeting soonish. I should get going. But I appreciate the tea.”

He moved to his feet, and McGonagall nodded. “Any time. Or, not _any_ time. I am a very busy woman.”

He sighed, “‘Course.”

“Give some thought to expanding James’s treatment. I will think about better ways to facilitate his education here.”

“Thank you,” he told her sincerely, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“It is, after all, my job.” McGonagall nodded toward the door, picking up her feather quill. “Be sure to keep an open mind, out there, Harry. Change may very well be in the wind.”

It was one of McGonagall’s quirks which made Harry smile with nostalgia. A little bit of Dumbledore’s influence on the elder educator, perhaps. Ron called it ‘fortune cookie wisdom.’ Minerva McGonagall’s trademark farewell.

“Will do, Headmistress. See you for supper.”

Harry was halfway to the Gryffindor Common Room when Malfoy intercepted him in the bustling corridor—because of _course_ he did. Harry was in a hall of mirrors, and every one had that pale, pointy face in it. There was no escape.

“Potter. I’ve been searching for you.”

“Why?” Harry said, and it was blunt enough to startle Malfoy for a moment. His gaze skipped across the curious little faces surrounding them, and he scowled.

“Well… I have to leave. To go back to my lab.” Malfoy deliberately smoothed his expression into something professional, and went on, “I thought you might like an update on the… situation.”

“Oh.” Harry rubbed the back of his neck. “I would, yeah.”

Malfoy stepped into an alcove to the left, out of the flow of corridor traffic. Harry followed, and cast a wordless-wandless privacy Charm. Malfoy’s eyes widened, but he didn’t comment. The window at the end of the alcove wasn’t sealed properly, and a chilly breeze made Harry shudder.

“How’s Sam?” Harry asked.

“The same,” Malfoy replied, clicking his tongue. “I need to consult with a colleague about the properties of jobberknoll saliva.” Harry blanched, but Malfoy didn’t seem to notice. “The feathers interact so poorly with billywig, but I’ve a hunch that saliva might be less caustic. I’m hoping for insight, because it’d take weeks to fully test that hypothesis.”

“Weeks?” Harry moaned. “Fuck. Poor kid.”

“As I said, hopefully Fleur will have insights which I lack.”

Harry pursed his lips, wrinkled his nose. “You’re consulting _Fleur?”_

“I realize she’s not an expert,” Malfoy sniffed, defensive and snide. “But she’s made a dedicated study of Magical birds, in recent years. I find her methods very sound. She’s not merely a lovely woman, you realize? She has a sharp mind—”

“Godric’s saggy balls, Malfoy, I know that!” Harry gripped his fringe in one fist, then let go. Malfoy tracked the action with his eyes. “She’s my sister-in-law, you cynical tit. I know she’s clever. She was a Triwizard Champion!”

“Yes, well,” Malfoy deadpanned, “so were you.”

“Sod off,” Harry mumbled. “Don’t you have _saliva_ to test? You aren’t getting it here.”

Something in Malfoy’s expression slid sideways. He ran a hand over his mouth, across his beard, almost like he was hiding a smile. The breeze blew between them again.

“I didn’t know Fleur was studying birds,” Harry admitted, a bit sore about it.

Malfoy shrugged elegantly. “I believe it’s a rather common hobby for Veela descendants. She talked my mother into joining her birdwatching club.”

“And that’s another thing!” Harry announced suddenly, crossing his arms. “How d’you even _meet_ Fleur? Why is she running around with your mother to begin with?”

Malfoy seemed, if possible, even less impressed with Harry. “How did I meet her? Are you truly that oblivious?”

“I know you sent a—a _letter_ , but I hardly think—”

“It’s nothing to do with the letters,” Malfoy said stonily. “We haven’t spoken about that in years. We didn’t speak at all, in fact, for eight years after I sent them.”

“Then why? Are you really that devoted to worming your way into my family?”

Malfoy ignored the jibe. “Potter. _Eight years after the letter_. You are the Head of the Auror Department. I don’t believe that’s meant to be a vanity appointment.”

“Piss off, Malfoy!”

He rolled his silver eyes to the ceiling. “What happened eleven years ago, Potter? Why might Fleur choose to contact _me_ at that particular point in time?”

Harry thought about it. He really did. But—

“Louis was born. And Lily, of course. But I don’t understand what that has to do with you.”

Malfoy stared at him for a long, tense moment. Then he said, wonderingly, “You honestly don’t. You have no idea.” He snorted his frowning approximation of a laugh. “That’s rather punctured my ego, if I’m honest.”

Harry considered walking away from Malfoy. He wanted to. His ragged, sardonic voice made something inside Harry feel molten.

_("You’re a better man than this."_

_“Maybe I’m not.”_

_“You can be. If you want to.”)_

“What does that mean?” he prompted instead. Malfoy's lips twitched.

“Fleur Weasley, née Delacour, gave birth to a _son_. A male child with Veela ancestry. It’s incredibly rare.” There was something proud, almost smug, lurking behind his eyes. “Veela genetic markers attach themselves to X chromosomes, typically. It’s not my particular field of study, but I have a colleague in Italy doing remarkable work with gene mapping—”

“She wanted your professional opinion?” Harry interrupted. “On creature inheritance?”

Malfoy ran a hand though his hair, and sighed. “I always thought you were rather thick, in school, but I’d convinced myself that was youthful jealousy.”

“You were jealous of me?” Harry doubted.

“Potter! Pay attention.” Malfoy pointed a long finger at his own face. A gust of wind whipped his hair across his forehead. “White-gold hair. Pale eyes. Colorless skin. A natural gift for Legilimency. Bone structure which, on a woman, would probably be much more attractive.”

Harry’s mouth was open. He closed it, and swallowed. “You’re a Veela?”

“Of course not! I’m a Wizard. Our family has cross-bred with Veela many times, over the course of our history,” Malfoy said, but the smugness evaporated. He looked a little embarrassed.

“But… you’re male. Your father was male. I thought you said it’s rare?”

Malfoy bit his lips, stroked his beard. “It is. The Malfoy line ensured male heirs with magic. _Aeternum hæreditatem_. Most families won’t risk it.”

“Why not?” Harry knew such things were possible; he’d learned more than he ever needed to know about magical childbirth, as the father of three Weasleys. “I thought it was just… you know, _nicer_. To be surprised.”

“It might be, if your family line didn’t depend upon a male heir for direct inheritance.” Malfoy made a frustrated hand gesture. “The old Wizarding families weren’t any more progressive than their Muggle counterparts, and they had magic to ensure Their Will Be Done. Blood magic, very ancient. Very stupid. It was particularly idiotic for the Malfoys, as we have so much Veela inheritance swimming around in our gene pool.”

“But… if you can guarantee a male heir…”

“Yes, well, you _can_. At the expense of any other children. Powerful magic requires powerful sacrifice—you know that better than most.” His eyes flicked to Harry’s forehead, but didn’t linger. “The Blacks managed two sons, Sirius and Regulus, though I’ve heard it made Walburga quite unhinged.” Malfoy’s frown lines deepened. “My parents put all their eggs in one spoiled basket.”

It was a strange sensation—wanting to contradict Malfoy, out of routine politeness, while at the same time agreeing the man had a point. He _had_ been spoiled, after all. Agree with Malfoy, or be kind to him?

Harry said nothing, until the silence cracked Malfoy like an egg.

“Fleur wanted advice from someone with experience. She came to Mother, not me.”

“Because she raised a boy with Veela blood,” Harry worked through it.

“Veela _genetics_. Louis and I are both fairly diluted, as far as that goes. Scorpius even more so.”

“Did you use magic, too?” Harry frowned. “To make sure Scorpius was a boy?”

Malfoy looked offended. “I’m a _scientist_ , Potter. Astoria and I used Muggle methods for ensuring an heir with XY chromosomes. The Malfoy magic doesn't care about gender—it seems to only be concerned with _blood_ , as you might expect. Astoria never planned to have more children, but it wasn’t worth the risk.”

“Muggle methods.”

“In-vitro fertilization.” That embarrassed flush crept further up his neck. He really did blush easily. “It’s perfectly safe.”

It was the longest conversation he and Malfoy had ever had, alone, as adults. And it wasn’t… awful. It was interesting, really. Malfoy liked to lecture, but Harry was used to that; he had Hermione Granger-Weasley for a best friend. There was far less arguing than he might've expected, and more candor.

"But..." Draco stared at him as Harry picked his words with care. "With the DARC, and everything..."

"What was left to inherit?" The blond supplied dryly. "Enough, Potter. Enough to make the fertility clinic worthwhile. Though I see your point; the Malfoy legacy is largely sunburns, excellent posture, and genocidal mania, these days."

Harry was trying hard not to think about _Draco bloody Malfoy in a Muggle fertility clinic_ , and so he wasn’t thinking properly when he mused, “Louis doesn’t have the charm. Does he? I mean, the Veela… magical charm… thing.”

“No,” Malfoy agreed slowly. “He’s male. Veela magical abilities are carried on X chromosomes. Males can’t inherit them.”

“So. No magical allure.”

“Does that seem like something I suffer from, Potter?”

Malfoy’s raspy voice was wry, self-deprecating. Inviting Harry to make a joke, even at his expense, but Harry didn’t find it at all funny. He rubbed his cold arms. It wasn’t that Malfoy looked like a Veela, or moved like one… but people’s heads turned his way, all the same. Harry’s always did—and that thought had him rocking uncomfortably on his heels.

“Well,” he managed, “I s’pose not.”

Malfoy rolled his eyes. Again. “Anyway, Fleur and I will work on the problem this evening, and get an answer for you tomorrow.”

“For Pomfrey.”

Malfoy paused. “What?”

“The answer’s for Madam Pomfrey,” Harry said. “For Sam Wolpert. Not me.”

“Ah. Yes. Of course.” Malfoy adjusted his cuffs and lifted his bearded chin. “You understand what I mean.”

Harry watched his spine stiffen, his shoulders grow sharper. He’d spent so much of his life watching Draco Malfoy, and then so much trying _not_ to watch, that he realized something suddenly. Something utterly, utterly unpredictable.

“I really appreciate it, Malfoy,” he said, and watched the pale man bite down on his lower lip. “You really are the best, aren’t you?”

As color flooded Malfoy’s cheeks and the corner of his mouth twitched, Harry’s stomach decided to exit his body through his own throat. His heart might follow, if it pounded any harder. Only two decades of giving speeches and interviews and Wizengamot testimony prevented him from collapsing in a mortified heap. Draco Malfoy didn’t have Veela allure. He had something far scarier, far more compelling:

He could _change_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE HOMELESS BLACK TRANS WOMEN FUND  
> https://www.gofundme.com/f/homeless-black-trans-women-fund
> 
> THE OKRA PROJECT  
> https://www.theokraproject.com/
> 
> BLACK TRANS TRAVEL FUND  
> https://www.blacktranstravelfund.com/
> 
> THE EMERGENCY RELEASE FUND  
> https://emergencyreleasefund.com/about/


	14. Sunday, September 15th, 2019 - Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right now, trying to write canon-compliant, queer-friendly Potter fanfic is like trying to plug the holes in a sinking ship. But hey, fuck it, I'm doing it anyway because I am an Old Sentimental Lady who doesn't mind fixing shit. I'll bail this waste water all day long. WE ARE NOT GOING DOWN WITH YOU, JOANNE!
> 
> ...Ahem.
> 
> Today's very rough update comes to you in honor of the US Supreme Court's 6-3 decision to end workplace discrimination for LGBTQIA+ workers. It's not a very cheery update, actually, but it does drive the plot forward in several key ways. Part two of this update should be coming within the next week. Any and all grammar/Brit pick corrections are welcome, as I'm editing these chapters less than usual.
> 
> Drop me a comment! I always respond, and they're extremely motivational. You can also find me on Tumblr, where I am also earnestdesire.
> 
> Keep yourselves safe for me. Always always always. XOXO

**Sunday, September 15 th, 2019**

Harry knew it was a really very staggeringly bad idea to get drunk on the grounds of Hogwarts. He rarely drank, and for very good reason. But, then again: The world was made of Malfoys. He prodded his head with a finger, and it wobbled enough to trigger a ghoulish moan.

“Chin up, Dogfather,” Teddy mumbled, grinning mouth full of fangs he’d grown himself half an hour ago. He had to sip his spiked butterbeer through a bendy straw.

“You look like your dad,” Harry informed him, “mid-transformation.”

“You already made that joke.”

“Did I?” Harry pulled off his glasses to clean them, but it didn’t help the fuzzy vision.

Harry and Teddy spent the evening with the children, which meant they'd spent it greeting half of Hogwarts lower classes, as well. It was a revolving door of curious 'hellos.' Albus and Scorpius were practically conjoined, and Rose directed the boys like they were co-starring in a very strange play. With Rose came Molly, and a few of the more extroverted Ravenclaws. Lorcan and Lysander stopped by, as did Dom and Roxie, but the older students all had too much studying and too little interest to stay. Lily brought Artie, Louis, and a quick-witted Snake named Anita. Anita was blind, and it'd taken Harry more than an hour to pick up on it. Lily rolled her eyes at her father and whispered (too loudly) that _“Dad's shockingly clueless, for an Auror.”_ Harry wondered if his younger children ever planned to make Gryffindor friends. Just, you know, as a change of pace.

James didn't make an appearance, but that was fair enough.

“Ted. Teddy. Tedward.”

“Yes, Harry?”

“I’m drunk as a skunk.”

Teddy started giggling. It sounded odd, coming through those fangs. “‘Drunk as a skunk?’ Really?”

“Stoned as a gnome?” Harry said, a bit indignant.

“Pissed as a pixie?”

“Limp as an imp.”

Teddy fell off the small sofa and onto the floor. _Thump_.

“You don’ belong down there,” Harry told him, very sincerely. He missed Ron, who never fell off of things whilst laughing at Harry’s pain. Mostly. “You should get up, yeah? How’s that funny?”

“Everything about you is funny right now!”

That was, apparently, true. Teddy was in convulsions of mirth. A quick and sloppy Tempus told Harry it was just after midnight. He tossed his wand toward the side table, and missed. It rolled away under the sofa.

“D’you know your cousin is a Veela?” Harry wondered. Teddy stopped laughing.

“Scorpius? Umm… well, yeah? Bit obvious, mate. What wit’ the—” He waved a hand in the vicinity of his head, then squinted hard. The fangs receded. “Even if he isn’t, like, glowy.”

“Glowy?” Harry said, genuinely perplexed.

“Like one those weird baby angel statues Arthur keeps buying for Molly.”

“The light-up Muggle ones? With the smiling?”

Teddy looked vaguely horrified. “The smiling. An’ the chubby elbows.”

“Malfoys shouldn’t glow like angel babies,” Harry said. He was confident about that.

“That’s the girls, and not like they can help it,” Teddy reminded him. “The boys don’t glow; they don’t have the allure. It’s just Scorp’s hair. And the skin. And, like, the smiling. I reckon Draco’s given up on the smiling.”

Harry frowned. Or, frowned _more_. “Victoire doesn’t glow.”

Teddy sat up on his elbows to stare at Harry. His raised eyebrows were two different colors. “She sure as shit does!”

“Like an _angel baby?”_ Harry gagged. Teddy winced, too.

“Only sometimes.”

“I don’t think the glowy thingamabob works on me,” Harry said. Ted sipped his butterbeer and tilted his head.

“Possible.”

“Or, actually… I think I rem’ber it, once. At Fleur’s wedding, maybe?”

“Anything’s possible.”

_(“Anything’s possible, if you’ve got enough nerve.”)_

Harry smiled. He rubbed a palm over the Protean medallion on his chest.

“Louis does have really pretty hair. Does he do the smile thing?”

“Louis is a terror,” Ted declared grandly. “Even ‘fore he could talk, he could just _blink_ you into submission. His parents were ready for it, though.”

_(“Fleur wanted advice from someone with experience.”)_

The voice drove Ginny right out of his head, and Harry wanted—abruptly—to cry.

“I’ve never seen Malfoy look like an angel,” he said, woodenly. “Baby, or grown up, or anything.” Harry was sure that was true, and also not at all sure. It made his head hurt.

Teddy interrupted this with a sigh, and pushed himself back onto the sofa. Harry saw a flash of the irritation that Teddy had been shoving down all day. Ted took another gurgling drink before saying, “Why d’you even care, mate?”

“Oh.” Harry rubbed the back of his stiff neck. “I just wonder why…”

“Why what?”

“Fuck. Never mind.”

“You’re not spe—er, species-ist,” Ted said, slowly, and his eyes were skeptical but his voice was certain. “‘Cause, like, Hagrid. And my dad. Firenze the Centaur, and that House-elf, Kreacher. Is it just Veela, then, that you don’t much like?”

Harry sat up with a growl. “I’ve got no problem with Veela!”

“Sure?” Ted wondered, mismatched eyebrows up. “You just don’t trust ‘em.”

“I didn’t trust Malfoy long before he was a Veela,” Harry said, pronouncing each word with care.

“But… Harry, mate, he was _always_ part-Veela.”

Harry didn’t have the space inside his head for that concept. For the idea that eleven-year-old Malfoy had been able to _blink_ , and people would love him. It made no sense. If Malfoy had that ability, surely he would’ve used it on everyone? On Hermione, or Ron? On Harry?

“Malfoy just keeps _changing_ ,” Harry whinged, “like a _git_.”

“Wouldn’t know really,” Ted admitted with a shrug. “Didn’t know ‘im when he was a Death Eating tosser, did I?”

“He’s all… fatherly, and beardy, and scholar-ish.”

“Scorpius was born a year after I met Draco. An’ I was, like, eight years old.”

“But he’s changed since then, too!”

“D’you reckon you’re mad Draco’s changing, or that you’re not?”

There was a still second. A very hot rush of magic filled up Harry’s fingertips, his toes. The empty butterbeer bottles on the coffee table rattled ominously.

Teddy went wide-eyed. The neon color leached from his eyebrows and hair. “Harry?”

“I’m—that’s _not_ —”

“Harry,” Ted said, hands up. He had his wand clutched tight in one fist. “Take a breath.”

Harry tried. He opened and shut his mouth, several times, until he managed to suck in a loud breath. There were tiny sparks of magic crawling along his forearms, up his fingertips, and he closed his hands into fists.

“Harry?”

_“Everything_ has changed, Ted.” Harry’s voice was like an earthquake, a rumble of things shifting deep below.

And it looked, for a few moments, like Teddy was going to agree with him. To placate him, maybe. His eyes—flicking from Harry’s face to his scarred, wandless hands—were unbearably soft. Tender.

“Everything has changed,” Ted nodded, wand still at the ready. “Everything in your whole life, Harry. Except you.”

The magic grew fiercer, hotter, until Harry wondered if he might just burn up alongside it. Teddy was shouting— _“Harry! Merlin’s sake, Harry!”_ —and it would’ve been nobler if that were the reason Harry finally calmed the fuck down. It wasn’t.

A bottle shattered, loud and sharp as a TV gunshot.

And then there were long, slim fingers against the side of his neck.

And then there was darkness. But only for a moment.

When Harry blinked his way back, Teddy was on the other side of the room. Red-eyed, red-nosed, his hair still dusty brown and limp with sweat. His wand trembled at his side.

“Te—” Harry cleared his throat. “Teddy?”

“Mr. Harry Potter is feeling calmer now?” The high, whistling voice at his elbow belonged to a House-elf. A familiar one.

“Winky?”

“Harry Potter was very angry,” Winky told him, pulling a little at one of her big, wooly ears. “The Elves is not wanting to bother Harry Potter, but Winky is coming anyway. To stop the shaking.” She gave him a very disappointed look. “Harry Potter is breaking things.”

“I—I’m sorry,” Harry said, and he was. Very.

“Harry Potter is not having his wand.” She eyed him with elvish suspicion. (He was quite familiar with that look.) “Would his wand stop the shaking?”

“It… might.”

Winky snapped her fingers, and Harry’s wand appeared in her skinny grip. She held it out to him impatiently. Harry unclenched his fists to take it from her. His magic flared once, making everyone in the room wince, and then it settled into a low, steady purr.

_A lion in wait_ , Harry thought, and wished he hadn’t.

He shuddered.

“Harry. That…” Teddy stopped himself, shook himself.

“I’m sorry, Ted.”

“You were—we were drunk.” Teddy seemed to be talking himself through things as he went. He scratched his eyebrow with the tip of his wand. “We drank too much, Miss Winky.”

“Yes, Mr. Teddy Lupin,” she agreed, eyeing the bottles. There was a deep sadness in the slope of her tiny shoulders.

“Harry was asking about Draco. Draco Malfoy.”

“Mr. Draco Malfoy is coming to Hogwarts,” Winky nodded. “He is asking for scones in the medical wing.”

“Right. Yeah, for tea. And Draco and Harry don’t really—” Teddy scowled. “They aren’t friendly. So. Makes sense Harry’d be upset, after that.”

“Mr. Harry Potter put holes in the wallpaper.”

Harry turned. Shards of broken bottle had embedded themselves into the wall, sunk deep through the violet paper.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated. Winky hummed an exasperated sound.

“It’s fine, Harry,” Ted insisted. “I got a Protego up before anything really happened. It’s just—I don’t know, mate. That wasn’t—”

“ _I know_ , all right.” Harry huffed a sigh, clenched a hand in his hair. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Harry Potter should go to bed!” Winky said, with all the command a two-foot tall Elf with eyes like headlights could muster.

(That was a lot of command, as it happened.)

“You’re right,” Harry told her, and Teddy nodded vigorously. Winky took this as permission to vanish all the remaining alcohol with a clap of her cold hands.

“Thanks, Miss Winky,” Teddy said. “You’re a life-saver.”

Harry stopped breathing. Opened his mouth. Shut it. Winky eyed him with caution, and her eyes were far too knowing. He clenched his fingers around his wand, and shoved the lion in his chest back down to the ground.

He pulled in air, and released it with a hiss. “Yeah. Thank you, Winky. I’ll do that right away.” Winky nodded, curtsied, and disappeared with a _pop!_

But, as Teddy pointed out, Harry hadn’t changed that much.

Once Teddy helped Harry to the bathroom, and then reluctantly shut himself behind the adjoining door of his own guest bedroom, Harry pulled out a cloak and a map.

The invisibility cloak crafted by Death Himself was in perfect condition, but it was a pain in the arse to use. Harry only stood 168cm tall; he still had to crouch a little to keep the hem on the floor. Obviously, Iggy Peverell had passed along his short stature to his descendants.

If drinking on Hogwarts grounds was foolhardy, then visiting the bones of a basilisk was deranged.

_Deranged_ , Harry thought, for a loose definition of ‘thinking.’ _Irrational, unbalanced, insane_. His ongoing Words with Friends battle—a four-way with Flint, Spinnet, and Ron for the highest possible score—had greatly increased Harry’s vocabulary. Technically, Dedalus Diggle played, too, but no one paid attention to Diggle’s scores. He was ancient, and a genius, and a terrible cheat.

“‘Venery’ is a stupid word,” Harry huffed fondly, even though no one was around to hear it. Sort of. Almost no one.

“What’s a stupid word?” Myrtle demanded.

Hecate’s handbag, she was young. Had Moaning Myrtle always been that young? It’d only been a few years since Harry’d seen her. She was the same, though, and Harry was—

“Stupid,” he said, and then decided it answered her question, too. “It’s stupid, never mind it. How’re you, Myrtle?”

“Oh, _awful_ , Harry. Just awful.”

“In new ways, or..?”

“Did you know my bathroom is now a ‘restricted area?’” she demanded.

“You might’ve mentioned that.” Once. Twice. Four-hundred times.

“I never get visitors anymore. I have to do the visiting.”

“I thought you liked that,” Harry said. “Visiting? Prefect bathroom, and whatnot?”

She sent him a stink-eye. “They’ve warded the pipes.”

“Have they?” Harry was surprised. “When’d they do it?”

Ghosts could not blush, but Myrtle’s face went a bit less transparent as she scowled. “I was only saying hello! I can’t go anywhere without water pipes, after all, and it’s not like I can _feel_ anything. Accidents happen, Harry!”

Harry grimaced. “Gross.”

“I AM NOT GROSS!”

Moaning Myrtle disappeared into the nearest toilet cubicle with a morose (and moaning) gurgle. At least no one used this bathroom anymore, so the water she flooded his shoes with was clean. For a loose definition of ‘clean.’

Definitions should be more definite, probably.

Harry tucked the Marauders’ Map into his pocket before he focused on the snake-shaped sink tap. Parseltongue wasn’t the only Magical language—Mermish, Gnomish, Elvish, Hermione was collecting the set—but it was the only language you didn’t need to _learn_. Mione said Parseltongue wasn’t technically a _language_ at all, but a kind of serpent-specific Legilimency. Something to do with the inner ear.

Anyway, that was good. Harry was pants at foreign languages.

_“Open!”_ he commanded the silver snake, and it woke up with a wriggle. The other sinks sunk backwards, away from Harry, until the entrance to a corridor beyond was revealed.

It always smelled the same.

Harry and Ron had cleared away the cave-in nearly two decades ago, and repaired the crumbling ceiling. Ron wanted to know why they were bothering, and Harry didn’t have an answer for that. Not then, and not now. He just knew that some places were important. Hallowed ground. Two pieces of Voldemort’s soul had died in that Chamber, and Harry couldn’t help feeling that the Chamber knew that, somehow. That Slytherin himself watched over Harry and Ginny: Two children of old Magical families, whose blood his Heir had been willing to spill. Would that have pleased the (deranged) bastard? As Harry hissed his way past the Chamber entrance, he rubbed a palm against the jade green snake on the wall.

_“Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four.”_

The statue’s mouth fell open, but nothing emerged. Nothing ever did, anymore.

Slytherin was silent.

The once-mighty basilisk lay in dusty pieces, her skeleton the size of several train cars. She was sprawled out at Salazar Slytherin’s feet, like an offering. After the war, Harry tried to talk to Ginny about their time in the Chamber. He tried to ask about the basilisk, about how much control she’d had over the monster. It was something no one else understood, really—the Parseltongue, and the power it gave you.

Ginny didn’t cry much, so she was _furious_ whenever it happened. Harry wasn’t good at pushing through that anger, those tears.

Instead, he came here. Not often. It’d been years, and he’d been fairly drunk then, too. A Ministry ball of some kind… nearly Christmas, he remembered. The stone floor had been so cold.

_“Is anyone listening?”_ Harry asked.

One year, he’d gotten an answer. A small, sibilant voice from the corner of the room. An adder, barely blinking out of its winter hibernation. Harry had caught it a few cave rats, in exchange for a grumpy chat.

“Harry?”

He jumped, and immediately felt nauseous. He swallowed hard and spun in a circle, wide-eyed.

“Harry, my boy. Come let me take a look at you.”

For a wild moment, he thought it was Salazar Slytherin speaking. Well, the statue, anyway. He watched it, suspicious, until the voice sighed once more.

“Harry Potter, I am _not_ a statue. Come around the basilisk, and see for yourself.”

Harry put his wand into dueling position, and circled the basilisk’s skeleton on quiet feet. His heart pounded. His wand felt slippery in his hand.

Just beyond the massive, toothless skull were two objects Harry could not have predicted in a million foolhardy lifetimes:

One was a portrait, expertly painted, with Albus Dumbledore twinkling away at him.

The other was the Mirror of Erised.

“Hello again, Harry.”

Harry stared. Then he snapped.

_“Why_ didn’t you just talk to me in McGonagall’s office? Why d’you always have to make a bloody dramatic entrance?”

“Do you believe I anticipated your visit to the Chamber of Secrets this evening?” When Harry only snorted, Dumbledore’s smile grew. “My dear boy, I am a portrait. And I try not to interfere in Minerva’s conversations. It makes her, understandably, annoyed.”

“How’d you even _get down here?”_

Dumbledore settled back in his painted seat. “Last Summer, the third-floor corridor collapsed into the Philosopher’s Chambers. Structural damage, from the devil’s snare. Minerva and Filius needed somewhere to store the Mirror of Erised, and Severus suggested this place. Of course, it required someone with a little knowledge of Parseltongue to open it.”

“You—you speak Parseltongue?”

“Oh, no. But I’ve picked up a word, here or there.” He shrugged. “Not unlike your Mr. Granger-Weasley. I’m sure my pronunciation is pedestrian, at best.”

“…Right.”

“We agreed this might be the safest place in the school for an object like the Mirror,” Professor Dumbledore explained. “So few people are ever born with the skill to enter. And I think Salazar would have appreciated the symbolism.”

“Someday, another Parseltongue might find their way in here.”

“Yes. That is why I can visit, at a moment’s notice.”

“You’re all mad,” Harry declared. “Why was the devil’s snare still under that corridor? Why is the Mirror even here? This is a _school_ , y’know?”

“It is a school. A site for international meetings, and a research facility. And a home, for professors and staff as well as students. Hogwarts serves many functions, as you know well.”

“What function does that mirror serve?”

Dumbledore’s long beard twitched. “Don’t you remember?”

Harry’s eyes slid right, toward the golden, claw-footed mirror. The odd, backwards inscription still bothered him. _I show not your face but your heart's desire_.

“Are you going to look again, Harry?”

He blinked. His head hurt. His wand hung loose at his side.

“I don’t need to look,” he said, though his heart was petrifying.

“Ah.”

“I don’t need to—to see her that way.”

“Miss Weasley.”

_“Ginny_ _Potter,”_ he growled. Dumbledore nodded.

“Of course. A bit after my time, you see.”

But Ron’s marriage was after Dumbledore’s time, as well, and so it still felt like the headmaster was _saying something_. Harry didn’t want to guess what.

“Is that your heart’s desire, Harry? To see your wife again?”

Harry could feel the raw rage of his magic, the roar of the lion, and he could have released it. Flooded Dumbledore’s portrait with power, and the Mirror, too. Scorched the basilisk black. It felt good to destroy things, sometimes, but even the Harry who knew Albus Dumbledore would’ve hesitated. The fire could be banked, if never doused.

The feeling knocked Harry off-balance enough to stumble. _Unbalanced_ : deranged. Was that Harry, these days? And Dumbledore always? Was that their common language?

‘Deranged’ was a small town on a steep mountainside—clinging, grasping, _unbalanced_ , waiting for the storm to come blow everything valuable away.

“I think you should go,” Dumbledore told him, but kindly.

“I am not a child!” Harry shouted. “I don’t need a _mirror_ to tell me what I can’t have!”

“You misunderstand.”

“I always do, don’t I?”

“The Mirror of Erised shows us our truest desires, yes. And when we have them? It shows us nothing but ourselves.”

Harry blinked the blurriness from his eyes, and looked straight into Dumbledore’s painted patience.

“Is that what you saw?”

Dumbledore sighed, “Never, Harry. I never saw myself at all.”

The words were on the tip of his tongue—the _admission_. That it’d been nothing but family, when Harry was young, and that he feared it’d be nothing but family now. Not just Ginny (though God, _fuck_ , yes Ginny, too), but all of the family he lost. His parents, Sirius and Remus, and Fred. All the family he’d never have again.

He feared Ginny wasn’t enough.

Harry dropped to his knees, and closed his eyes. His wand smacked into the stone, but did not break. It’d never break. That was the Elder Wand’s last great victory over death.

The Elder Wand that had once belonged to Draco Malfoy, even if he never held it. Lucius Malfoy gave Ginny the Horcrux diary, and then (unwillingly) freed Dobby. Narcissa Malfoy, wary and wandless, lied to keep Harry alive. The Malfoy family never made the right choices for the right reasons, back then... but those choices were vital, all the same.

Five hours ago, Harry hugged Scorpius Malfoy and sent him off to bed.

Everything in Harry’s life came down to Malfoys, and fate, and he wanted to _scream_ about how unfair that was. He wanted to beat his chest with his fist until it cracked open, and everything tucked away inside it came spilling out. He'd _always_ wanted to do that, _always_ —

“I have to change,” Harry told his headmaster. His mentor. His puppeteer. His face was wet with tears and sweat, and his voice echoed off the walls.

Dumbledore didn’t respond, but he did not interrupt, either. Harry knew a portrait wasn’t a ghost, and that a ghost wasn’t a person. Not really. But he also knew that whatever remained of Albus Dumbledore knew Harry Potter better than he knew himself. That was what McGonagall meant, wasn’t it?

_(“Dumbledore seemed to have you figured out.”)_

“You knew I’d come here,” Harry wagered, and Dumbledore didn’t deny it. “You knew, and you moved the Mirror here on purpose.”

Dumbledore smiled.

“I’m tired of being tested,” Harry went on, rasping. “I’m tired, sir.”

“I am sorry, my boy. You carry burden so very well, we often forget how heavy it makes you.”

“And this—” Harry waved a hand toward the Mirror “—is meant to _help_ , is it?”

Dumbledore looked over his spectacles, eyebrows up. “The last time you looked in the Mirror of Erised, Harry, you saw a way to keep on living. Forgive me, but… I rather thought you might need the opportunity again.”


End file.
